The role of women is not fully centered in the research on conflicts and peacebuilding in different contexts. Even when they are centered, more often than not, women are constructed as benevolent perpetual victims of violence. The research on peacebuilding tends to largely focus on middle-class women occupying powerful political positions, and rarely on the roles women at the grassroots level play in engaging with everyday conflict and violence, and everyday peacebuilding practices. Last semester, I conducted an interview with Dr. Jennifer Ball, an Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, as a part of a research assignment for my Research Methods class. Because grassroots women are underrepresented, understudied, and not acknowledged in the understanding of different forms of conflict and peacebuilding, it was fascinating for me to learn that Dr. Ball had spent two years in my country, Uganda, to focus on these women. She spent time with grassroots women in different parts of Uganda and created space for them to tell their stories of conflict and what they do every day to mitigate conflicts and contribute to peace-building in their communities. The overarching goal of the interview was to learn about Dr. Ball’s experiences in studying Ugandan women at the grassroots who are contributing to peace-building processes across different communities in Uganda. The following interview is intentionally presented verbatim to replicate Dr. Ball’s methodological approach of fully incorporating the voices of research participants in her book, Women, Development, and Peacebuilding in Africa: Stories from Uganda. However, the interview is also slightly edited for clarity purposes.
Brendah Ndagire: My understanding is that you did research work related to women at the grassroots level in peace-building processes relating to women, peace, and security within Uganda. My question is why Uganda?
Jennifer Ball: Great question. OK. Where do I start? I’m trying to think of what came first. So I will start… OK. So I was part of a peace-building organization in Toronto, called Interchange. And so one of the women, who since passed on, who was in leadership there, Ann Goodman, was a Prof[essor] at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). And she had asked me to go with her and a couple of other women to go to Kenya because there were people interested in setting [up] a branch of the organization there. So we did that. And then on the way back, she had friends and colleagues in – oh, gosh, the threads are interesting – in Uganda. So we went with her for a week in Uganda. Now, even before that, there had been a conference in Toronto, at OISE, [that] I had attended, at which one of these colleagues that we were going to visit in Uganda had been speaking – Paulo Wangoola. And at the time, several people were then going to travel with him back to Uganda, to Jinja, to the source of the Nile [River]. And they were going to be with traditional healers and priests. And, you know, there was going to be a ceremony and celebration at the source of the Nile. And I thought, oh, I would love to go, but I didn’t know anybody. I wasn’t well connected to them. So it didn’t happen. But then a couple of years later, then [Anne and I] had connected. And so we were on this trip and then we went to Uganda, and then lo and behold, we were meeting up with Paulo and his community of people. So, at the time, I was already in my Ph.D. program and I already had a research topic [and] I had fully funded research right here in Ontario, around the use of the Circle in rural communities. It was exciting to research about Circle [processes]. And so when I was going over to Kenya and Uganda, I said to myself, ‘do not change your research’, right? Because I knew how I would feel when I went there. So when I came back, a professor on my committee basically said, “Why are you doing your research in Canada?” I said, “What are you talking about? It is funded, fully funded. It is great research.” And he said, “Yeah, but you are so much more passionate when you are talking about the stuff that you experienced in Uganda – Africa generally.” So then I took a few days to think about it and then I changed my research. Now, at the time, I was also in a relationship with a guy from Uganda.
BN: [Laughs] I will leave that off the record.
JB: [Laughs] No, no, it was actually quite significant … [to the story]. It is a long story. I had been involved in caregiving. So, his brother, who was a friend of mine, ended up in the hospital here, and so we spent two years looking after him in the hospital before he died. So why is that important? It is because, of the women in my study, one of them was his aunt. And one of the other women is a good friend of a Ugandan woman who I met through being at the hospital. She was a friend of Waiga, who was in the hospital – she and her husband and their kids. And so when I was preparing to go to Uganda, then it was a question of starting to ask Ugandan friends of mine: Do you know any women who you would think I should speak to? Women who are having a significant impact in their communities at the local level? And so that was sort of the beginning of trying to identify women who I might possibly interview. So that is why those stories are actually significant to the study.
BN: I am interested in some specific details. When was that and how long were you there?
JB:I went to Uganda in 2006 to do my research. So I was there between 2006 and 2008.
BN: That is two years. And where were you based?
JB: So I was based in Kampala because my sister had actually moved there just two months before I arrived. She had moved from Zambia to Uganda. She had a place in Kampala, so I stayed with her. And then I traveled through the whole country because when I started the research, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be women representing different parts of the country or it was going to be women-focused in one area of the country. I allowed that to emerge in the research. And so I ended up interviewing many women. But the women I documented for the research, there is a woman in Arua, one in Gulu, one near Moroto, Karamoja, one in Kisoro and one in Kampala.
BN: Was that research mainly focused on peace and conflict within Uganda?
JB:The premise of the research was that I was interested in what women at the grassroots were doing that was contributing to peacebuilding. But I was interested specifically in women who do not self-define as peacebuilders. So as you are very aware, there are many women who are activists in Uganda. So that’s what I found – in a context where there is significant conflict, there is always a counter-movement of activism for peace and to deal with the conflict. But I want[ed] to talk to women who don’t self-define in that way… because my experience of growing up in Zambia was that women in their everyday lives are making significant contributions to peace… if we define peacebuilding in a very holistic way, not just as a response to conflict. And some of the research that I had read, particularly coming out of South Africa, was that women define peace-building in a holistic way. It [peacebuilding] is what you do to prevent conflict. It is what you do to resolve it when it happens, and it is what you do to rebuild and heal afterward. So it is the whole of life. And some academics do not like to work with that definition because it feels like, well, it could also take into account everything that is community development. And it can. Of course it does.
BN: I am wondering, in the process of interviewing these women in different parts of the country, what were your key observations? What was standing out in the conversations you were having with them, as it relates to peace-building and the subject you were trying to interrogate?
JB: Well, first of all, I think the women didn’t value what they were doing in connection to peace or peacebuilding. So typically… like what you are doing with the interview process…. of course, I needed to tell them about the research that I was doing, that it was related to peacebuilding, and all of that from my ethics protocols. But the women would initially say, “I am not doing anything related to peace.” And so because what I was asking them in terms of the questions was really just to tell me about their life story – that is the premise – then I would ask them, “Ok, so if you do not do the work you are doing, then what happens in your community?” And it was when I did that, when I asked that question, that they could see the connection because then conflicts happen. Conflicts happen because, as Bob Marley sings, “a hungry man is an angry man.” Kids are not in school because, you know, so many different reasons that are the roots of conflict. And that is when they would connect the dots and they would be like, “yeah.” And then you could see that [they] kind of realized that there was even more value. Of course, they valued what they were doing because they knew it was important. But it was [not] in relation to the term ‘peacebuilding’. And men, especially when I had conversations with men, would say, “but that is women’s work.” And I would say, “Yeah, it is women’s work for sure. And if the women do not do that work, what happens?” And then the light bulb comes on because there is that gap and there is conflict. So then how do we value what these women are doing as a contribution to peace and peacebuilding? So that was one thing. Another observation I had, which was really interesting with one woman. She is very… I don’t know, her personality is a very domineering personality, very, very much in charge…of her household and the agricultural production that was happening and everything. And, yes, many people there respected her, but sometimes her personality was a little bit challenging. And I got to thinking, “oh, you know, I can see that she actually causes conflict in some situations”. And so that got me doubting my research and thinking, “Is she the best person to actually be speaking to in terms of an example of peace in this peaceful way?” And what that led to for me was the realization that all of us are both contributing to conflict and building peace. The potential is there for all of us in that way. And so it is not like there is some pure form of a peacebuilder. And that was really helpful for me because it was like I was not looking for some special category of women who never contributed to the conflict.
***
Feature Photo: Gulu Town, the former epicenter of the Lord’s Resistance Army Civil War with the Government of Uganda in the Northern region. Source, Brendah Ndagire.
Societies in the form of enclosed carbonated water
Within this aluminum or plastic structure, you will find water.All humans need water to survive.When opening a soda bottle or can, as the pressure is released, the liquid can not retain as much carbon dioxide and the excess bubbles are released. The carbon dioxide (bubbles) represent the many different delicate sectors that are pushed beyond their limits whether amongst climate change, poor health, or poverty.If you shake a can of soda one too many times, these bubbles are set under high pressure, so they’ll expand if the can is opened and the pressure falls to standard climatic levels.To conclude, if the can of carbonated water had fewer bubbles, the can would be more resilient when shook. The more bubbles you have the less resilient it will be to impending shocks.
As I began to reflect on the turn of events over the last couple of weeks, I found myself in a slight conundrum. During a time of globally shared conflict, what area of focus is more plausible? To speak directly to the most dominant and perhaps most significant issue in these contemporary times, or to address some of the many concerns that seem to have slipped into the backdrop? I reached the consensus that the most coherent approach for this particular entry would be to combine the two. First, what is going on with what we call the coronavirus or COVID-19? To summarize, in December 2019 the world was abruptly notified that a virus was spreading in Wuhan, a city in Eastern China [2]. Rapidly it spread to several other nations in subsequent months, with cases doubling within a couple of weeks and later a mere few days.
This virus is a framework surrounding genetic material and can replicate by entering a living cell. It can spread across surfaces, although it is predominantly transmitted through cough, contact, and being within proximity fewer than 2 meters from someone else. Over a short amount of time, it has a drastic impact on the intestines, spleen, and lungs which eventually has the potential to lead into irreparable lungs and an overwhelmed immune system [3]. As of yet, there have been more mild cases than severe. However, the death toll has continued to rise. According to World Meters Info, as of April 06, 2020, these are the current global statistics for COVID-19: Coronavirus Cases: 1,324,385 | Deaths: 73,636 | Recovered: 277,280 [4]. Behind this brief analysis of the pandemic itself, we can begin to examine some of the elements that are currently lacking from crucial international discussions. I argue that the topic of resilience is one of the most significant missing links. However, before we try to grapple with that sort of mechanism, I will raise other questions that have been some of the missing points to global discourses as well.
First, what is the impact on war-torn societies?
Although COVID-19 has touched base within the Global South, as of yet, it has predominantly circulated itself around wealthier nations. However, if and when the wave of COVID-19 is more widely spread to the Global South there will be horrendous implications as the virus will inflict mass complications and constraints on several populations. This is due to fewer health services, exhausting resources, criminal groups, and decreased international support. The majority of states are primarily nationally interested, in lockdown, or running into their own agendas of emergency. However, to effectively minimize the detrimental circumstances COVID-19 could bring to the Global South, the humanitarian system needs to respond now. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated “I don’t think that these kinds of cooperation are happening. I think this kind of cooperation must start effectively, because without it, we’ll be defeated by the virus and the cost will be enormous, in human lives and in terms of the economy. Guterres said that until now, countries have been operating only in parallel to one another, making no efforts to ensure that their preventative actions are in synchrony. To add, he stated that sometimes, even within the same nation, different parts of the country are taking different actions” [5].
Second, what is the impact on war-torn and environmental refugees?
These populations are at high risk for infectious disease outbreaks for numerous reasons. To begin with, refugees lack access to sufficient health services. With fragile facilities, frequently overcrowded living conditions, and lower levels of sanitation, refugees will find themselves at dangerous odds when the COVID-19 wave takes over. [6].
Third, what is the impact on Indigenous communities?
In Canada, Indigenous populations have been vulnerable to pandemics since they first encountered settlers. It was revealed on March 11, 2020, that a $305-million fund would support Indigenous communities to manage COVID-19. However, Indigenous Services Canada Minister Marc Miller has said that “Indigenous communities are more vulnerable than non-Indigenous peoples.” This is due to the fact that Indigenous communities in Canada are exposed to high levels of overcrowding, chronic diseases, and living within remote parts of the country. [7].
Do we have resilient societies?
First off, what does it mean for a society to be resilient? Resilience is the capability of systems and individuals to cope with significant adversity or risk. Currently, it seems that many societies are set out like many modern businesses. Their main objective is to focus on the short term gain rather than the long term gain. Additionally, societies are not well set up for extreme pressure or sudden disruptions whether it is due to pandemics, climate change, cyberspace, or misinformation.
Generally, there are several failures in socio-ecological systems, however, the more complex question one might ask is how can societies transfer these ideas of resilience from concepts into practice. Socio-ecological systems are self-organizing systems. Therefore, in large part, they are governed by feedback loops where the effects that alter a certain part of the system will then also have implications for inducing more change onto another. Adaptiveness, transformation, and resilience are all necessary forms to cope with or take advantage of the effects of shocks onto these systems. A common misconception that is still in existence is that societies must be solely resilient to the ever-changing nature or environment that surrounds them, when in fact, it should instead be understood that the necessity of resilience in this particular circumstance derives from human-made constructs and impacts rather than “human versus nature”. Through the lens of survival, many communities are forcibly having to encompass the need to be resilient due to the actions that have been made by specific systems, actors, or institutions. In my view, with the overpowering circumstance of “sudden shocks” and the need to bound to survival tactics such as adaptiveness and resilience, it seems that these outcomes are indirect forms of slow violence. [8].
To round everything out, in order to effectively build resilience it incorporates education, governments, and media outlets. However, even more significantly, it primarily starts with our own attitudes rather than solely relying on community projects. To lessen the shocks of something such as COVID-19 in the future, there must be transitions from perpetual growth to flourishing within the limits of societies and earth. There are many benefits the circumstance of COVID-19 can bring despite the obvious dangers and hardships it has instigated. Resilience is for companies to adapt when the economy crashes, for extremist political parties to become less relevant as division does not provide productive contributions, and for the value of science and journalists to become the front runners of political conversations.
Perhaps the shaking of our economic and societal foundations will launch the prioritization of resilience.
[6] Madhav, Nita. “Pandemics: Risks, Impacts, and Mitigation.” Disease Control Priorities: Improving Health and Reducing Poverty. 3rd edition. U.S. National Library of Medicine, November 27, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525302/ .
[7] Wright, Teresa, and Canadian Press. “Concerns Raised over COVID-19 Outbreak Plans for Indigenous Communities.” National Post, March 14, 2020.
“We must dwell in our entirety. Anything less becomes self-dismemberment. We must claim all of our history, all our feelings and thoughts, the painful and the celestial, all together. And then we step up to the threshold…” – Ivan Granger, The Longing in Between, 2014. [1]
For as long as the archives of recorded memory serve, mythmaking has remained central to the human adventure. Confronted with the radical enigma of the world, perplexed by the very givenness of being, we have sought, in various ways across space, place and time, to weave sense into the constitutive fabric of experience. Yearning for coherence amidst the maelstrom of becoming, vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life and death, it is through myth that we have assembled the foundational structures of meaning that invisibly constellate our grasp of being. At their most powerful, myths are, in the words of Karen Armstrong, “about extremity; they force us to go beyond our experience… Myth is about the unknown; it is about that for which initially we have no words. Myth therefore looks into the heart of a great silence.” [2] This silence, rooted in the abysmal depths of existence and echoed in the hushed recesses of awareness, serves as a constant reminder of limit and possibility, hinting at the thresholds which bound our present horizons and echoing the dim expanses that beckon ever beyond.
Image Courtesy: Luke Moss on Unsplash
To quote philosopher William Desmond, these thresholds and expanses, as well as the pregnant silences they evoke, confront us with the ‘limit perplexities’ of embodied existence, that is, “perplexities that strike us into troubled rumination at the edge of system.” [3] Beyond sense, beyond reckoning, resistant to all attempts at domestication, such perplexities strike at the very core of our being, rupturing the tender fabric of everydayness and recalling our intrinsic boundedness and fragility. And of all such perplexities, perhaps none have figured so prominently in the corpus of human myth as that of suffering, the ever-present shadow of sun-fluttered life.
Image Courtesy: Berlian Khatulistiwa on Unsplash
According to Buddhist tradition, suffering (duḥkha) constitutes one of the ‘three marks’ (trilakṣaṇa) of existence, the remaining two being impermanence (anitya) and lack of intrinsic self-being (anātman). Although typically translated as ‘suffering’, duḥkha in fact connotes a far broader range of experience, including imperfection, sorrow, insubstantiality, anxiety, emptiness, pain and unsatisfactoriness. [4] As formulated in the Dharmacakra Pravartana Sūtra, traditionally revered as the Buddha’s first sermon, such forms of experience are inherent in the organic cycles of birth, ageing, sickness and death, as well as the subtler predicaments of union with that which is unpleasant, separation from that which is pleasant, and not getting what one wants. [5] In sum, duḥkha refers to the primal dis-ease that subtly and grossly shades “everything, both material and mental, that is conditioned, that is subject to arising and passing away … and that is not in a state of liberation.” [6] This is further suggested by the etymology of the term, which, according to some interpreters, originally signified an ill-fitting axle hole, [7] thus evoking the underlying themes of friction, incongruity and disequilibrium. Hence, like the bumpiness of a chariot with unbalanced wheels, life is fraught with the disjointed pathos of constant, inescapable tension, shadowed by the specters of pain and undoing that haunt every mote of sentience. To draw on another image of the Buddha, “all is burning … [b]urning with the fire of … birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.” [8] Or, in the analogous words of St. Paul, “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain … [and even we] groan within ourselves, waiting for … the redemption of the body.” [9] Add to this the additional kindling of violence, injustice and calamity, of malice, cruelty and inequity, and you finally end up with a fairly heady existential brew.
Image Courtesy: Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
How are we to bear the weight of this truth, to persist amidst the sweeping tides of affliction that beset our coming and going in being? What meaning, what sense, what purpose might be derived? When confronted not only as an abstract formula, but as a concrete truth inscribed in the lived singularity of the flesh, full cognisance of this power of undoing discloses what William Desmond has called a ‘desert in inwardness’, that is, a subjective declivity wherein “the intimacy of the nothing internally stripes the ‘I am,’ and at every moment of its self-affirmation haunts its hold on being.” [10] Naked and exposed, there emerges within the self a stark intimation of its own contingency, marked in equal measure by the primal signatures of pain and exhilaration. It is here we encounter the ecstatic affirmation of the Psalms, “the darkness and the light are both alike … I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” [11] Fearfully, for in the looming shadow of the void we are vulnerable in our crippling being-toward-death; wonderfully, for even in the midst of undoing, hope persists in the generative font of life. Indeed, everywhere we turn, both within and without, we inevitably encounter the paradoxical conjunction of coming to be and passing away, of creation and nothing. Life, then, is but a flash in the eye of the storm, at once a revelling in the festivity of being and a recoiling at the strife that cuts through all things. To quote a passage from the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, a core text in the wisdom literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism,
So you should view this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, A flash of lightening in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream. [12]
Image Courtesy: Diogo Nunes on Unsplash
Alas, when framed as in the above, there is indeed something dreamlike about the fleeting fragility of our coming to be, as well as a corresponding wisdom in our deeply coming to know and accept this truth. For if, as Socrates once claimed, the true vocation of the philosopher is to practice for the inevitable coming of death, [13] it would seem that a thorough accounting of finitude is indispensable in reconciling our existential condition. And yet, despite the wisdom of this knowing and the lofty therapy of ‘letting be’ it enables, there nonetheless remains an irreducible remainder of grief inscribed in the lived experience of the finite. This is beautifully and hauntingly expressed in a classic haiku by Kobayashi Issa, who, having endured many tragedies throughout his life and following the death of his young daughter, wrote the following:
This world of dew is only a world of dew – and yet . . . oh and yet . . . [14]
Issa, himself a Buddhist priest fluent in the law of impermanence, here managed to capture the elemental pathos of despair latent in every experience of meaningful loss. Like a drop of dew at the cusp of dawn, this world passes fleetingly under the perennial sun of change. Yet despite this knowledge, the anguish of undoing can neither be avoided nor denied. Hence, despite their knowing, even the wise shed tears. Despite his divinity, Jesus wept. [15] And we ourselves, in our very humanity, are defined at least in part by our porosity to affliction. Alongside our loftiest wisdom, therefore, must also be held our capacity to abide the blunt shattering of the known, to honour the traumatic kernel of the ‘and yet’ etched in the foundational bedrock of life. Far from romantic, this shattering evokes a silence beyond all attempts at rationalization. In the words of Etty Hillesum, writing shortly before her death in Auschwitz in 1943, “[s]uch words as ‘God’ and ‘Death’ and ‘Suffering’ and ‘Eternity’ are best forgotten. We have to become as simple and as wordless as the growing corn or the falling rain. We must just be.”
Image Courtesy: Liv Bruce on Unsplash
To ‘just be’ with the ‘and yet’ of existence, to bear simple witness to the ‘full catastrophe’ of life without either shrinking away or seeking false consolation – can we hold space for this? Can we open a clearing in the seat of the heart for the fullness of what this entails? Can we stand in the centre of the circle of fire, trembling in solidarity with the rest of creation? Can we truly accept both the pain and joy of what it means to be alive? And can we share this with others, allowing it to be the ground from which compassionate being-with may arise? In the words of Douglas E. Christie, “[h]ealing and renewal and hope can issue forth from such … practice; but the practice itself cannot be predicated upon expectation of them. One is called to remain empty, open, alert, always attentive to the presence of the other, particularly the suffering other.” [17] And yet, in the midst of this attentiveness, hope nevertheless remains that “even as one learns to open oneself to affliction, one might succeed in keeping a small corner of the soul unsullied—a place where the light and beauty of the world can continue to live amidst the nameless horrors.”
In this historic interval of trial and uncertainty, as the deep fragility of life is laid bare and the world around us shakes at its foundations, it is to this kind of mindfulness I believe we are called. In seeking peace, we must start from the abyss lying wide at the ground of existence, holding in mind the fulness of our condition and never forgetting honestly to inquire:
What would people look like if we could see them as they are, soaked in honey, stung and swollen, reckless, pinned against time? [19]
*** TWF
References
[1] Ivan Granger, “Bring All of Yourself,” in The Longing in Between: A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology, ed. Ivan Granger (Boulder, CO: Poetry Chaikhana, 2014), 4. [2] Karen Armstrong, “What Is a Myth?,” in A Short History of Myth (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2006), 3-4. [3] William Desmond, “Preface,” in Being and the Between (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1995), xiii. [4] Walpola Rahula, “The First Noble Truth: Dukkha,” in What the Buddha Taught, Revised Edition (New York: Grove Press, 1974), 17. [5] Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans., “Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma” (BuddhaSasana, 2011). [6] Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, “Duhkha,” in The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, ed. Stephan Schuhmacher and Gert Woerner, trans. Michael H Kohn, Karen Ready, and Werner Wiinsche (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), 96. [7] Christopher K Chapple, ed., “Book VI,” in The Bhagavad Gītā, trans. Winthrop Sargeant, 25th Anniversary Edition, SUNY Series in Cultural Perspectives (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2009), 303. [8] Ñanamoli Thera, trans., “Adittapariyaya Sutta: The Fire Sermon” (Access to Insight, 1993). [9] “Romans 8:22-23,” in The Holy Bible, King James Version. [10] William Desmond, “Being and the Metaxological,” in Being and the Between(Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1995), 190. [11] “Psalm 139:14,” in The Holy Bible, New King James Version (Thomas Nelson, 1982). [12] Josh Bartok, ed., “Diamond Sutra Gatha,” in The Sutra Book of the Greater Boston Zen Center (Greater Boston Zen Center, 2019), 78. [13] Plato, “Phaedo: 64a,” in Plato: Complete Works, ed. Paul Woodruff and D. S. Hutchinson, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 55. [14] Kobayashi Issa, “Kobayashi Issa,” in The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy, ed. John Brehm, trans. Robert Hass (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017), 20. [15] “John 11:35,” in The Holy Bible, New King James Version (Thomas Nelson, 1982). [16] Etty Hillesum, “Diaries, 1941-1942: 9 July, 1942,” in Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943, ed. Klaas A. D. Smelik, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002), 483. [17] Douglas Christie, “Kenosis: Empty, Emptied,” in The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 287-288. [18] Christie, 288. [19] Ellen Bass, “If You Knew,” in The Human Line (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2012), 51.
I never had to consider a lot of ethics in my research. Of course, I tried to avoid academic misconduct, but I never had to think about informed consent when I downloaded pages over pages about Peacekeeping Missions in DRK from the United Nations homepage. Or about respecting the autonomy of the census-data I tabulated in every possible way. I never worked with ‘real’ humans, just with their aggregated data. But since I started studying Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS), I discovered my love for community-based research. That caused a second spring for my interest in research. But also, for the first time, it made me seriously think about ethics in research. Interacting with ‘real’ humans could cause so much more damage than messing up my cross-tabulations- but is also way more exciting for me. There are countless ethics boards and university research guidelines that provide information on research ethics. And I felt, at least in theory, equipped to consider informed consent, inclusion, vulnerability, welfare, and so on in my research. But what should I do if I cannot ensure one hundred percent to meet all these criteria? Should I just stop my research, should I never start it? And is the prohibition of risky research itself unethical? How important is a research outcome compared to something with negative implications that might happen during the research process? Or to put it a little more provocative: What is ethical about allowing risky research? This still is a question that seemed a little bit too big to answer to me, so let’s break it down: Ethics is the scientific exploration of morals; consequently, the questions could be as well: What is moral about allowing risky research?
Source: The Blue Diamond Gallery
Contemplating morals in the sense of Kant means that there is a universal moral law, which leads to moral absolutism, meaning that there are things universally wrong or right. Bad actions are always bad, regardless of their intention (so if I became a feminist Robin Hood and stole tampons from drugstores to give them to people on their periods without access to sanitary products, I would still act immorally, according to Kant). And good actions will not be moral if the intentions are corrupt (so if I handed out sanitary products, just so I could write in a resume- or a blog, I still would be acting immorally). Translating Kant’s assumptions about morals onto my question means that, if the risky research acts ethically, it would be unethical to prohibit it. Unfortunately for Kant, it is impossible to foresee the future. So how could we make sure that the outcome would be ethical? A question that a lot of other people must have asked themselves before. And they answered them with the aforementioned ethics commissions and ethical research guidelines. So, I ran around in a big circle… And if I would stop here, the answer to my initial question ‘is the prohibition of risky research unethical?’ would be the unsatisfying answer, a lot of problems in the social sciences face: It depends.
The Vatican // Source: Wendy Cornquet/Wen Photos, Pixabay
It depends if we can, with a clean conscience, ensure that the moral guidelines we set ourselves as a society (or that were set for us, as researchers) will be followed. Following the critique points of the Milgram experiment (the one with the fake-electric shocks), that means: No use of deception, no possible harm to participants and the right to withdraw. But now again, it is unclear if that would lead to scientific evidence. And is scientific evidence necessary in this equation for the act to be ethical? Re-reading some ethics guidelines, with Kant in the back of my head, I suspect intentions and actions are more important than the outcome. Of course, we could go down the rabbit hole now and debate if, in the long run, the harm of a few would help a million others to thrive (and we would face the well-known trolley problem). But according to Kant, that would not be ethical. In another attempt to answer my initial question, now, with Kant’s help, I would say: It is ethical to allow risky research if you will succeed in executing it ethically. And while this is a nice mantra on paper, it holds some difficulties to apply in real-world research.
Source: Pixabay
Without being able to foresee the future of my research undertakings, I must start taking measures to find out how risky my research will actually be. Because first and foremost, no one should be harmed during the research process. Not the participants, nor the researcher. Nonetheless, I do think that research always contains a certain amount of risk, which never can be eliminated, without refraining from conducting research altogether. But since Kant’s sharp distinction between action and intentions, as well as right and wrong, were not helpful in my real-life scenario, I must come up with a solution myself. Maybe risky research is ethical; perhaps we need this kind of knowledge. But I know that I do not want to be that person who conducts dangerous research. Because if I already can not figure it out with Kant, I will not survive in front of an ethics board. And after things did not work out with Kant and me, I am looking for a philosopher who would be a guide in how to restore moral integrity if the intentions were right, but the actions have gone awry. If you have any suggestions, let me know!
*** MW
Note: This blog post is a reflection on research and ethics in PACS’ 602 Research Methods class on ‘The Practice of Peace.’ And the author (MW) is a current MPAC international student from Germany.
Featured Image: Immanuel Kant // Credit: Jason Soren.
What does it mean to pursue peace and conflict studies (PACS) today? On the face of it, this might seem like a fairly banal question. After all, reference to any standard text in the field will quickly clarify the formal definition of PACS, namely, “an academic field that identifies and analyzes individual and collective violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms underlying social, political, and economic conflicts in order to understand and transform those processes that might lead to a more peaceful planet”(Barash and Webel 2018, 24).
Photo: Brendah Ndagire
Despite their seeming straightforwardness, however, such definitions are in fact deceptively simple, concealing within their formulaic contours a dizzying tapestry of underlying complexity. Indeed, how might we even begin to approach such perennial themes as violence and non-violence, structure and agency, sameness and alterity, let alone their mutual intrication across multiple fields of determination, ranging from the human to the extra-human? As anyone grappling with the foundational quandaries of peace and conflict will likely attest, each of these nodal points constitutes something of a world in itself, and it thus falls on us as student-practitioners of PACS to skillfully navigate the shifting boundaries of worlds within worlds. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that early pioneers of the field, such as Walter Isard, Kenneth Boulding, and Anatol Rapoport, regarded it as inherently global and interdisciplinary.
Photo: Sunyu on Unsplash
Of course, many of these ‘worlds’ appear far from our immediate reach, situated ‘out there’ in the exteriority of being. Accordingly, we frequently occupy the position of distanced observers, voyeuristically consuming the mediatized spectacles of violence that everywhere haunt and abound. There is a strange pleasure in this, a strange sense of accomplishment at the expense of the flailing earth, the dispossessed other (1). After all, do we as graduates not strive, at least symbolically, to become ‘masters’ of peace and conflict? Perhaps there is something slightly twisted about this, a kind of sadomasochistic jouissance reflective of the broader epistemic violence of the academy. Perhaps this is further reflective of a deep and abiding alienation at the core of contemporary social relations, pointing to a foundational form of structural and intersubjective violence endemic to our time. Perhaps, as the great wisdom traditions have suggested, we are helplessly fallen or bewitched by cosmic ignorance, bound by the chains of a wrenching finitude and in need of transcendent grace. Either way, one could speculate for ages.
Photo: Lysander Yuen on Unsplash
Yet in spite of all this, there is also something genuine, something true, about our quest for understanding. Alas, many of us are driven by real forms of suffering directly encountered and endured. Many of us are animated by great humility and compassion, seeking to help alleviate the bonds which so heavily weigh on life. Alongside the shadow of our discipline, therefore, can also be found great light. As such, it is not only the worlds ‘out there’ that matter, but also the worlds ‘in here’, hidden in the silent recesses of interiority where secret battles wage unseen. We are each on this path together, fraught and beautiful in its depth – yet how often do we truly realize it? In those rare moments of lucidity when my humanity ruptures the surface of everydayness, it hits me like a ton of bricks: deep is our sorrow, great is our promise, long is the road ahead.
Photo: Nuno Antunes on Unsplash
Given the above, how might we overcome the dualistic split between subject and object, interior and exterior? How might we realize the unity of worlds amidst irreducible multiplicity? In his magnum opus, the Shōbōgenzō, the great Japanese Buddhist priest, Dōgen Zenji, included a fascicle by the title of Genjōkōan. Many interpretations of this title abound, but one which specifically comes to mind at present is that of Norman Waddell and Abe Masao, who interpret it as signifying “the ultimate reality in which all things are distinctively individual, and yet equal in the presence of their suchness” (Waddell and Masao 1972) [2]. To my mind, this offers a fairly compelling vision of peace, namely, one in which each thing is granted its rightful place alongside others while being held in ultimate equality. How might we do this for ourselves, for each other, for the earth and cosmos and the sacred web of life? This, as I understand it, is the central task we have been given, and it is up to each one of us to respond in our own singular way, seeking harmony both within ourselves and with the existential matrix in which we are inscribed. Just as this matrix is complex, open and dynamic, so too is the very path we tread. Hence, even in the midst of urgency, we are called to patience; even in the midst of aggression, we are called to love; and even in the midst of complacency, we are called, in the words of one great seeker, to preserve ‘the pure cry of being under the ruins of the machine.’
Soweto Township, South Africa. A symbol of racial conflict, injustice, and the on-going work of reconciliation // Photo: Brendah Ndagire
More than an academic field or narrow profession, the path of peace and conflict is a total way of life, a living field of ultimate concern irreducible to any particular formula or creed. It is here in the ambiguity, in the constitutive space of betweenness, that we must boldly and tremblingly find our way.
*** TF
References
Barash, David P., and Charles Webel. “Peace Studies, Peace Education, and Peace Research.” In Peace & Conflict Studies, 4th ed., 23–40. California: SAGE, 2018.
Waddell, Norman, and Abe Masao. “Shōbōgenzō Genjōkōan.” The Eastern Buddhist 5, no. 2 (1972): 129–40.
Notes
Think, for instance, of how we as academics are encouraged to gather ‘data’ abstracted from the lived tragedies of others in order to produce ‘knowledge’, and how such knowledge, built on the back of real suffering, serves to enhance our personal status and mobility. In many respects, the academy is complicit in the ongoing commodification of suffering qua spectacle, and insofar as we personally benefit therefrom, we too are equally complicit.
To quote Waddell and Masao at greater length, “Genjō, literally something like ‘becoming manifest’ or ‘immediately manifesting,’ . . . [denotes] the presence of things as they are in themselves . . [T]he kō of kōan means sameness or ultimate equality . . . and an refers to ‘keeping to one’s sphere [in the universe].’ Kōan thus indicates the individuality of things and their absolute equality, the sameness of things’ differences, the difference of things’ sameness.”
All photos symbolize peace as a process and being.
Those who have connected with me on social media platforms have observed some of the unique, humanizing and political ways I tend to use that space. It took me a while to figure out how to productively use social media. I knew I loved writing. But I also loved taking photos of myself, of spaces I occupy, and of the people I meet in those environments. Over time, as the social media world hit the narcissistic age of #selfies, and I partook in that insistence on self-importance. It took me a while to scale down in the reproduction of the self. I want to believe I grew out of the #selfie culture, but who I am kidding! Every once in a while I take a selfie just so to tap into myself glorification. But as my work and study experiences in Uganda offered me the opportunity to travel in my country, and neighboring Rwanda and Kenya, I started to fall in love with photography, and the art of telling stories from the spaces I encountered through pictures. Posting photos significantly changed the way I engaged with the social media space. I started to use the platform as a media of education, and to inspire people to get out of their ‘comfort zones’ and see the world beyond their familiar sphere. Through written words, I also startedto be more intentional about askingquestions to challenge conventional perspectives that I perceived to be condoning socio-political and economic injustices. And that has been the evolution of my image on social media.
End of Year Reflections
Every person has a unique tradition of engaging with a concluding year. In the past 5 years, my end of a year tradition has been posing questions on Facebook to help me reflect on the year as it ends. This helps me to reorient my attention to the new year, as well as inviting my friends to respond to the questions as long as it reflects some of the experiences they have had in that year. I would, for instance, ask, what were your top 5 favorite books?” I would then list my own top five books, and organically my people would write down theirs and that would raise more questions for engagement, such as, “what did you find interesting about the book or what stood out?”
People in Istmina Chocó, Colombia, participating in a regional march against socio-political and economic injustices in their province // Photo: Brendah Ndagire
My favorite question to ask has always been, “what was your favorite word of the year and why?” Three years ago, I lived and worked in peace-building processes with Mennonite Central Committee in Chocó, Colombia. We spent most of the time reflecting on identity with the land and dignity and how they were central to most of the violent experiences of people in the country. And for a while, the word that described my experience in the rural Department/Province was dignity. Virtually, every Afro-Colombian I encountered and shared their known experiences of how their ancestors came to Colombia would conceptualize their understanding of territorial peace as having dignity, respect, and justice. In my private space, I spent time examining and thinking a lot about what dignity meant for me as an African woman in Chocó, who was not just an observed object in my new community but also a subject of the Afro-Colombian neighbors I got to spend time with. Dignity to me meant many things, including creating space to tell my comprehensive story, to be vulnerable with Afro-Colombian women who became my Hermanas (sisters) or my Madres (mothers) and to participate in their Lucha (struggle) for a dignified existence.
Learning conflict transformation processes in the Native American method of Circle at Conrad Grebel University College // Photo: Brendah Ndagire
Reflection on Space
My favorite word for 2019 wasspace but I broke my own tradition of posing questions of reflection on my news feeds. Perhaps because I was exhausted in every way. Last year came with its own forms of transitions and incredible moments of growth for me. I was working two community transformation jobs in Uganda that involved many travel experiences across communities. I was mostly interviewing people for the organizational blog site I was writing stories for, or marketing a new community project my friend and I were working on in Lira, Northern Uganda. In effect, I got so physically and emotionally exhausted mostly by my observation and interpretation of the on-going political violence in my country as well as my demanding work schedule. And of course, I was also preparing to move here to Canada to study Peace and Conflict, in a distinctly new space. Interestingly, as we started to learn about the focus of the MPAC program on the role of civil society actors in building peace, and understanding the evolution of civil society ideas, the word space seemed to dominate classroom conversations. Some of the questions we raised related to space included: How can we live well in the spaces we are occupying? Who is and isn’t allowed to live well in such spaces? Or who does and does not participate in public, market, and/or non-governmental spaces? How can we locate our space as aspiring peacebuilding practitioners? Who does and does not occupy the spaces we want to participate in the practice of peace or living well? And how can we cultivate healing in our spaces?
Dry coffee seeds from a small-scale farmer in Salento, Quindio, Colombia // Photo: Brendah Ndagire
Last semester, we got introduced to John Paul Lederach’s “web building theory and practice” in his book, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. We learned about his emphasis on relational spaces as critical spaces in the processes of peacebuilding. We recognized how our role as aspiring peacebuilding practitioners is to identify and sustain such visible and invisible relational spaces in communities affected by protracted diverse forms of violence. Because it is these spaces that tend to restore the broken family, communal, or national relationships. And of course, some of us may not take Lederach’s insistence on building relationships or relational spaces as critical to the imagination of a peaceful society seriously. And I understand where we may be coming from. The truth is relationships are messy. Indeed, building relationships is a messy process, and so is identifying and sustaining the would be relational spaces to actualize an element of peace in communities affected by different forms of violence, especially armed violence. In the end, what looks like a simplistic approach to building peace, it turns out it is actually a very difficult approach.
MPAC Space
I have intentionally tied a few stories in this first blog because I wanted it to be an invitation for MPAC students who are interested in expanding their reflections on assigned readings beyond the confines of formal spaces. We can make this blog space a safe space for every participant by reflecting deeply on what it means to humanize, dignify, or to do justice. It is a space for us to share our critical observation of conflict, civic engagement, and peace in spaces we previously occupied or currently occupy.
Peace is Everybody's Business 