Unspeakable: reflections on relational approaches to research in post-conflict settings

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I offer reflections on a research project with former combatants who fathered children as the result of conflict-related sexual violence in northern Uganda. The research sought to understand how becoming a father shaped their decision making as soldiers, and reintegration experiences following demobilisation. What roles, if any, do they play in their children’s lives post-conflict, and what futures do they envision for them? I consider the ethical and methodological challenges of the research project through the concept of the unspeakable, what Judith Herman refers to as ‘traumatic events that take place outside socially validated reality.’ How does one come to know beyond what one can imagine, or that which is socially unrecognisable, such as the love of fathers associated with the perpetration of violent atrocities? I foreground a relational approach to the research encounter, one that fostered intimate, steadfast, and mutually giving relationships between the research team and participants, and opening pathways to explore intimacy between a father and child. I then reflect on what this methodology offers in terms of thinking beyond Western-centric conceptualizations of peacebuilding.