Scholars in Conflict

This event will be focused on discussing the challenges and experiences of scholars who are living through conflict, or have had to move to escape conflict, or have experienced it in the past. Ukraine will be the driving case, but we will also discuss other experiences such as Afghanistan and Colombia.

There will be two panels of around 60 minutes each. They will start with brief introductions from our panellists (around 10 minutes) and then a Q&A/conversation with the hosts (who will be PhD students with similar experiences of doing research in countries where conflicts were ongoing).

The first panel will discuss how to do research on conflict in the midst of conflict: how to collect evidence, where to go, when to leave.

Questions to cover, among others: where (and how!) to search for evidence (interviews, data) when the conflict is ongoing, how to do your research if you cannot travel to your country, how to update the research design to evolving situations of conflict?

The second panel will look at how to deal with the social, economic, psychologic, and political ramifications of doing research on security and justice in a context of conflict.

Questions to cover, among others: how your research has been affected by the conflict (personally, politically), what have you learned from the experience and would like to share with others, what are your best coping mechanisms, and what challenges remain?

Both panels will focus on experiences and challenges, rather than being loaded on theories and concepts, and if possible, will we try to cover possible solutions as well.

After each panel, there will be a 15-minute period of breakout rooms, in which our panellists will be allocated to different online rooms where they will be able to exchange experiences and advice with those interested from the audience.

Learning Outcomes

Many students do field work and, in our pathway, this is usually intertwined with doing research in the context of conflict. They will learn how to identify and deal with the risks and anxieties inherent in doing research in countries whose conflicts that may still be ongoing and where the researchers may feel strong personal attachments to the topics of investigation