Helene Maria Kyed

Primary research areas

Helene Kyed’s research is within the field of peace and conflict, focusing particularly on the role of non-state actors and armed groups in justice provision and policing. More recently she began to study the conflict dynamics of climate change politics. Her research is ethnographically based and contributes to theoretical debates about authority, violence, sovereignty and legal pluralism.

Current research

Helene Kyed’s research focuses on understanding how authority and political order are constituted in contexts affected by conflict and contested statehood. She has analyzed this topic through ethnographic studies of justice provision, policing and local security dynamics – all fields, which are fundamental to the constitution of authority and political order. How are social disputes and crimes resolved in villages and poor urban neighbourhoods, where the state’s laws and institutions are largely absent and mistrusted? What roles do non-state actors like traditional leaders, civilian community policing groups, religious actors, and armed groups play in justice provision and order-making? These are some of the questions that Helene Kyed has explored in Myanmar, Mozambique and Swaziland to understand local dynamics of order-making and their wider political repercussions at country-wide level. 

Since 2021, Helene Kyed has extended her research on conflict dynamics and justice to encompass the topic of climate change politics in contexts with contested statehood and violent conflict. The focus is here in particular on Myanmar after the 2021 military coup and contestations along its borders with Thailand and India.

Helene Kyed is also working on a book manuscript on policing in Mozambique, based on many years of fieldwork among traditional leaders, civilian community policing actors and the state police. The book zooms in on everyday policing practices and the competition over authority, which raises deeper theoretical questions about sovereignty, violence, and the constitution of political order in a country where the state does not enjoy a de facto monopoly on authority and law.

Projects

Helene Maria Kyed coordinates the MyClimate project (2021-2026) (Myanmar: Climate Actions, Conflict and Peacebuilding), which is a collaborative project between DIIS, Nyan Corridor, Chiang Mai University, and the Highland Institute. It explores the climate-conflict nexus, by studying how climate change actions and politics interact with ongoing conflict dynamics in Myanmar’s contested ethnic border regions. Read more about the project here: https://www.diis.dk/en/projects/myclimate-myanmar-climate-actions-conflict-and-peacebuilding  

Between 2015 and 2021, Helene Maria Kyed coordinated the ‘Everyday Justice and Security in the Myanmar Transition’ (EverJust), which included ethnographic research across Myanmar into how local people access justice and resolve disputes. The project is finalized but the research continues to be published. Read more about the project here: https://www.diis.dk/dk/everjust.

Sub-project on soldier defections in Myanmar following the 1 February 2021 military coup, which investigates the drivers and obstacles to leaving the military and what defection means for the pro-democracy revolution (since May 2021).