Doing fieldwork in conflict settings

In this DIIS Working Paper Kasper Hoffmann reflects on the challenges of doing fieldwork in conflict settings. Conflict settings constitute particularly difficult fields of research as they are characterized by suspicion, mistrust, fear, and uncertainty. Based on his own experience doing fieldwork in war-torn eastern Congo Hoffmann suggests that researchers carrying out fieldwork in conflict settings may be caught in a difficult dilemma between comprehension and apprehension. While the vocational mission of researchers push them to seek an ever-deeper level of comprehension, their apprehension of the risks may hold them back from seeking it. Furthermore, due to the particular conditions of conflict settings, researchers should not assume to be in a position of control. The author argues that while the researchers apprehension of the perceived dangers of the conflict setting may be difficult overcome they can be mitigated by close collaboration with local ‘brokers’ who are better positioned to anticipate the dangers of the field and thereby minimizing its attendant risks. But, such collaboration is also fraught with challenges, which are conditioned by the dangers of the field itself. Hoffmann highlights three interrelated challenges, which emerged from this approach during his fieldwork. They were the politics of truth the competition over the ‘rents’ of the research and trust.