ABSTRACT

This article deploys the language, narratives and proposed solutions of research participants to conceptualise peace research as a representational and relational process of recognition. To do so, it draws from a multi-year research project on the economic livelihood and social integration strategies of conflict-affected youth in Liberia’s commercial motorcycling sector. Its starting point is reflexive engagement with participants’ own frequent question: ‘What is the benefit of this project?’ It advocates for participatory approaches to the time-spaces that ex-combatant and conflict-affected youth actually inhabit (rather than those scripted or desired for them by more traditional forms of peace research). It applies critical peace-building insights about time to contribute to conceptualisations of post-conflict ‘reintegration trajectories’ that question ideas about who builds peace, and how. It argues that participatory research brings issues of social stigma, objectification and marginalisation to the fore. And, it explores the methodological implications of participatory research, identifying the ways in which sited ethnography, relational interviewing and narrative approaches can centre research-as-recognition. Participatory approaches make peace researchable not just to collect lived experiences (treating research as transactional data collection) but to implement participants’ own ideas about peace-building strategies and solutions (treating peace research as relational recognition and something that is mutually beneficial).

摘要

本文运用研究参与者的语言、叙述和提出的解决方案，将和平研究概念化为一种代表性和相关性的承认过程。为此，它借鉴了利比里亚商业摩托车部门受冲突影响青年的经济生计和社会融合战略的多年研究项目。它的出发点是对参与者自己的常见问题进行反思性参与：“这个项目有什么好处？”它提倡对前战斗人员和受冲突影响的青年实际居住的时空采取参与式方法（而不是那些由更传统的和平研究形式为他们编写或期望的那些）。它运用关于时间的批判性建设和平见解，为冲突后“重新融合轨迹”的概念化做出贡献，这些轨迹质疑关于谁建立和平以及如何建立和平的想法。它认为，参与式研究将社会污名化、客观化和边缘化问题带到了前台。并且，它探讨了参与式研究的方法论含义，确定了现场民族志、关系访谈和叙述方法可以将研究作为识别的中心的方式。