Conflict Narratives Research Articles

EXPLORING YOUTUBE'S ROLE IN SHAPING PUBLIC PERCEPTION AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT

This study aims to explore YouTube's role in shaping public perception and understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Drawing on literature that examines media influence, digital communication, and conflict narratives, the research synthesizes insights from various sources to assess how YouTube impacts viewers' opinions and knowledge. The analysis reveals that YouTube democratizes information dissemination, providing a platform for diverse voices, including official media, grassroots organizations, and independent creators. This multiplicity of perspectives contributes to a nuanced understanding of the conflict, highlighting personal stories, political contexts, and power dynamics. However, findings also indicate that YouTube can amplify polarization by creating echo chambers and spreading misinformation. Ultimately, YouTube serves as a double-edged sword, capable of both educating the public and perpetuating biases, making its role in the Israel-Palestine conflict both influential and complex.

Mother-Coaches’ Experiences of Policy and Programs: “Whoever Wrote This Policy Doesn’t Understand What It Means to Be a Mom”

In this paper, we explore the lived experiences of mother-coaches who, while coaching, navigate policy and programs aimed at promoting gender equity. Specifically, this study took place within the context of an amateur national, 10-day multisport games event in Canada. Using critical feminist narrative inquiry, 14 mother-coaches (apprentice, assistant, or head coach), representing eight different provinces, and 10 different sports, participated in this study. Three themes were constructed that call attention to the Canadian sport system broadly, as well as the 10-day multisport games event specifically: (a) performative policies and gendered assumptions, (b) programs that are band-aids for a “shitty culture,” and (c) a pathway to nowhere for mother-coaches. The findings complicate the hegemonic work–family conflict narrative, suggesting that mother-coaches’ advancement, opportunities, and quality experiences are impacted by the current heteropatriarchal culture and structure of sport that these programs and policy are rooted in.

Global Jihad and Local Sentiment: The Impact of the Hamas-Israel Conflict on Radicalization in Indonesia

The prolonged conflict between Hamas and Israel has significant impacts on the social and political dynamics in various countries, including Indonesia. This study aims to analyze how this conflict affects radicalization and the development of terrorism ideology in Indonesia. The methodology employed is a qualitative approach based on narrative analysis through document studies and secondary data. This research applies the Relative Deprivation Theory to explain the dissatisfaction felt by Indonesian Muslims regarding the conditions in Palestine, and the Framing Theory to understand how the conflict narrative is framed by radical groups. The findings indicate that the narrative of Palestinian suffering and the legitimacy of jihad are used by extremist groups to recruit new members and garner support. Additionally, this phenomenon contributes to an increase in anti-Israel sentiment among Indonesian society. The findings reveal the complex relationship between international conflicts and local radicalization, which calls for more serious attention from the government in addressing potential terrorism threats arising from these sentiments.

In-between group membership within intergroup conflicts: The case of Druze in Israel.

In-between groups encompass individuals who simultaneously belong to social categories that are often seen as mutually exclusive in addition to maintaining their distinct group identity. The current paper sheds light on how members of in-between groups manage their relations within intergroup conflicts. Three studies were conducted among the Druze minority in Israel, a group that is ethnically Arab and shares the Arab identity with the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel and simultaneously identifies as Israeli. In Study 1 (N = 300), we found that identification as Druze was positively associated with the identification as Arab and Israeli. In Study 2, we examined Druze's endorsement of conflict narratives compared to Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian citizens (N = 271). While the latter participants endorsed their ingroup narrative more than the outgroup narrative, Druze participants endorsed both narratives equally. In Study 3, we tested Druze's solidarity with the Palestinian minority against the 2018 Nation-State Law. We found that overall, Druze participants (N = 568) endorsed more inclusive amendments that benefited the Druze and Palestinians than exclusive amendments that benefited the Druze only. In all studies, we tested the role of identification with the rival groups. We discuss these findings and suggest possible underlying mechanisms.

War Is Back in Post-Heroic Europe: Change and Continuity in the Relationship Between the Armed Forces and Society

Since war is back in Europe, societal perceptions are shifting. Terms such as “warfighting,” “whole of society,” and “total defence force” are becoming more prevalent. There is a growing recognition of the military’s importance and heightened appreciation for soldiers, while taboos on weapon manufacturing and warfighting are disappearing. To what extent, how and with what implication have societal attitudes surrounding the armed forces changed in recent years? This article examines this question through exploratory empirical research of military, political, and public communication items, including media accounts and speeches. This reveals both change and continuity in what had been called post-heroic Europe: both a more pro-military stance and the persistence of one-dimensional narratives of conflict, military intervention and soldiers. This is strategically and ethically problematic. While fairy tale narratives dehumanize both opponents and “our” soldiers, demanding them to be superhuman, a tragic narrative better captures the human reality of war.

An Overlooked Jewish Community: The Jews of Rodoscuk in the 17th Century

This article addresses the intercommunal relations between the 17th century Jewish community of Rodoscuk and other social groups. It examines the community’s social structure, housing distribution and economic activities, placing particular emphasis on its interactions with Muslims in areas like trade, religious practices and social dynamics. By drawing on local court records, particularly the Qadi Registers, this article reveals how these interactions were shaped by the legal and social frameworks of their day, highlighting the complexities of coexistence in those contexts. In doing so, it evidences not only that Rodoscuk’s Jewish community took part in vibrant economic exchanges with its Muslim neighbors but also that it engaged with common social and religious contexts. Via a detailed analysis of these records, this study offers new insights into the nature of intercommunal relations in Rodoscuk. It challenges the often-assumed narrative of segregation and conflict in Ottoman society by testing existing claims in the literature through the case of the Jews of Rodoscuk. It concludes that Jews in this region in fact lived in relative harmony with Muslims and other groups in their vicinity.

Cross-national civilian reporting of the everydayness of war: Emerging citizen journalism practices in Palestine and Kashmir

This article explores how Palestinian and Kashmiri civilians engage with the everyday reality of war. The focus is on understanding how citizens temporarily adopt the roles of war correspondents, contributing to the broader conflict narrative. Employing an inductive approach, the study integrates ethnography, phenomenology, and reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) to gain insights into how citizen journalists shape war narratives. Analysing the interview data through RTA reveals six key themes: “Emerging citizen journalism practices,” “Community Consciousness,” “Challenges in media perception,” “Self-expression and Social cohesion,” Responding to Authoritarian Falsehoods”, “Teen journalism”, and “Self-protection and safety”. The findings suggest that the citizen journalism practices in Palestine and Kashmir strategically report the war narratives, representing a progressive journalism practice. The results underline that citizen journalism practices in these regions purposefully present war narratives and represent a form of constructive journalism, which responds to authoritarian regimes’ extensive control over mainstream media and facilitates reconciliation and peace. Such citizen journalism practices act as an equipoise to data imbalances in information architecture for the consumers. The research underscores how conflict citizen journalism embodies activist and collaborative models with robust potential for replication in other conflict-ridden areas.

Mediator Narration of Memory: US Presidents’ Autobiographies and the Narration of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1993–2012

The main argument of the paper is that we should examine mediator-narrative as an agency in narrative construction of memory during conflict. It demonstrates how despite the differences between the US presidents’ personal world views, their strategic narrations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are strikingly similar. These selective narratives strengthen the image of the US as a peacemaker and benevolent global leader. This narration is achieved by sidelining the detrimental role of the Israeli settlements and security threats, especially the increasing influence of Hamas in the Gaza-Strip. Therefore, this resilient mediator-narrative prevents critical thinking on the conflict and encourages a duplication of such policies.

Forum Theatre for Reconciliation: a drama-based approach to conflict transformation applied to socio-environmental struggles in Bolivia

ABSTRACT This paper examines how participatory theatre methods can be used to foster reconciliation and conduct research in communities affected by socio-environmental conflicts. We design and pilot a distinctive drama-based approach to conflict transformation that we call Forum Theatre for Reconciliation (FTR). The method furthers embodied intersubjective understanding as well as a critical analysis of structural causes of conflict. We discuss this approach applied to low-intensity communal conflicts linked to extreme wildfires in Bolivia, where fires exacerbate tensions between different communities and result in (sometimes) violent confrontation and polarising discourse. We identify three key innovations of this peacebuilding approach: rehumanising the Self and Other, co-creating complex and inclusive narratives of conflict, and devising collective response across different perspectives and experiences.

Narratives of conflict: Russian media’s evolving treatment of Ukraine (2013–2022)

Narratives of conflict: Russian media’s evolving treatment of Ukraine (2013–2022)

Are Black Offenders Disproportionately Victimizing Asian Americans During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Comparison to Expected Racial Distributions and the Pre-Pandemic Period

ABSTRACT During the COVID-19 pandemic, reports of violence against Asian Americans surged in traditional and social media, often depicting an Asian victim attacked by a Black assailant and suggesting heightened Black animosity toward Asian Americans. Scholars have challenged this Black-Asian conflict narrative by highlighting that White perpetrators commit over 75% of anti-Asian hate crimes. However, the large share of White offenders in anti-Asian hate crime may simply reflect American racial demographics, and Black offenders could be disproportionately victimizing Asian Americans relative to the size of the Black population or offender pool. The current study examined the share of Black offenders in violence against Asian victims relative to the racial composition of local populations or offender pools. Analysis using 2020 NIBRS and Census data indicated overrepresentation of Black offenders in violence against Asian victims relative to the weighted average of the Black population proportion of the 351 cities in which such incidents occurred. However, Black offenders’ share of violence against Asian victims closely matched the proportion Black in the average local potential offender pool. Comparison of 2019 and 2020 data indicated an increase in Black offenders’ share of violence against Asian victims, but this difference in the distributions was not statistically significant.

Norms concerning the recognition of victimhood in postconflict societies: An analysis of “whatabouteries” in online sectarian arguments

AbstractAcknowledging the victims on both sides of a conflict is crucial to peacebuilding and reconciliation. However, recognizing the victims of one community can challenge an opposing group's conflict narrative, particularly when their own group is seen as the primary victim. Suggestions of inclusive victimhood and blame can also threaten the sense of distinctiveness of each group's experience, leading to resistance. This article examines the conflict that arose when historical victimhood was discussed in the online comments sections of U.K. newspapers in response to the 2021 Coroner's Inquest into the Ballymurphy massacre. We focus on one common turn in sectarian argument in Northern Ireland: “Whatabouteries,” and the conflict that arises when whatabouteries appear in discussions. We describe the variety of forms whatabouteries—and responses to them—can take and analyze two extended conflict sequences in which they occur. Responses to such posts often invoke an implicit norm in these discussions: That when the victims of one group are publicly recognized in truth‐finding mechanisms, raising the issue of the opposing group's victims is illegitimate and can be treated as an act of provocation. This illustrates the need for sensitivity and an understanding of local, context‐specific norms when discussing victimhood and violence.

Spontaneous side-taking drives memory, empathy, and author attribution in conflict narratives

In two studies, we introduce the concept of spontaneous side-taking (SST) to describe how people initially align themselves in a conflict. The effects of side-taking in established conflicts are well studied, such as empathetic engagement and polarization. However, there is less known about how people spontaneously choose sides in situations without prior allegiances. To study these neglected effects of SST, we use two-character narratives to present participants with new conflicts in which they have no initial vested interest. These short narratives describe acts of aggression and detail the victimization of one character by another. Through two studies, we find: (1) victim characters receive greater attention and are remembered better; (2) victim characters receive more empathy; (3) victim characters are more likely to be viewed as the authors of conflict narratives; (4) and that side-taking flexibility diminishes after the first side-taking choice. This last finding means that there is a tendency for SST to stick over time. Overall, these findings demonstrate how victimization triggers and sustains side-taking in narratives by enhancing memory of and empathy for the victim.

A Simple Handshake: Public Schools for Amish Students in a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, School District, 1953–1994

Public school consolidation during the 1950s and 1960s in Lancaster and Chester Counties, Pennsylvania, sparked an exodus of Amish children from the area’s public schools and the establishment of Amish schools. The politics of consolidation in one location, however, resulted in a unique arrangement whereby the Lampeter-Strasburg School District, formed in 1953 in southcentral Lancaster County, operated two one-room schools for Amish residents of the district for more than forty years. The positive relationship between Amish families and public school leaders exemplifies the possibility of comity and cooperation in contrast to the narrative of discord and conflict around Amish schooling in the mid-twentieth-century.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: THE POLITICIZATION OF RELIGION AND CONFLICT

The Central African Republic (CAR) has been a theater of hostilities for decades, in cluding the Seleka rebellion in December 2012, which caused religious-based discrimination, especially between the Muslim minority and Christian majority. Opportunistic political leaders and armed groups have misused religion for political and egocentric gains in the CAR. The pur pose of this qualitative content analysis research is to investigate the use of religion for political motives in the CAR and how such actions impact conflict and sectarian divides in the so-called phantom state. The paper recommends ways to mitigate political influence and the misuse of religion by political and armed group actors in the CAR. Very little or no literature on conflict in the CAR has specifically addressed the influence of politics on religion and how it contributes to fueling conflict in the country. This study fills the gaps in the literature by investigating the historical narratives of the CAR conflict while highlighting instances of political abuse of religion. A review of existing literature on the political manipulation of religion establishes the basis for a critical analysis of the influence of politics on religion in the CAR and its impact on conflict. Keywords: Politics, religious identities, conflict, Central African Republic, anti-Balaka, Seleka.

The fog of war: development, conflict narratives, and civilian victimisation in Colombia

Conflict generates uncertainty and a supply of violent actors willing to contract their services to third parties that makes identifying motivation for civilian victimisation difficult. In this paper, I examine how elites not only have opportunities to capitalise on violence during war for developmental interests, but also take advantage of the fog of war to lump all cases of victimisation under a clear overarching narrative of political contestation rather than repression for economic interests. I build on the literature of developmental violence in conflict to assess two cases of dam construction by the Public Enterprises of Medellin (EPM) in Antioquia, Colombia between 1995 and 2018: Hidroituango and Porce II. I argue that civilians opposing the dams were associated with one of the armed groups in the territory and elites dismissed their victimisation as a product of competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents. This conflict narrative obscures other potential realities and precludes deeper investigation into the ambiguous motivations behind attacks, even as the victims themselves may challenge and present counternarratives of developmental violence.

Methodology of the excluded: conspiracy as discourse in the eastern DRC

ABSTRACT This article seeks to theorise the importance of locally produced narratives of conflict and peacekeeping which can be used to diversify our understanding of conflict. These narratives are often dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories’ by international peacebuilders and disregarded as ‘unverifiable’ by researchers. But the people who articulate these narratives often have extensive lived experience of conflict. Consequently, they demonstrate sophisticated informal theorising, resistance to malevolent power, and experience-led knowledge in their narratives. Engaging more seriously with these narratives can, therefore, make important contributions to our understandings. Drawing on narratives and stories collected over more than a decade of interview-based and ethnographic field research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article shows how conspiracy narratives can be analytically useful in questioning the powerful and enduring logics of international intervention and reveal important yet oft-ignored aspects of peacebuilding failure that need to be addressed if peace is to succeed.

Ontological Insecurity and the Return of the Greek-Turkish Conflicts: Reconfiguring Hagia Sophia as an Ontic Space

ABSTRACT This article locates the rising tensions between Greece and Turkey in the milieu of increasing ontological insecurity in the European periphery. Building on the growing literature on ontological security in IR, we argue that the dissipation of Europe as a framework of meaning and identity in the European periphery has generated ontological insecurity—a state of general anxiety which stems from the disruption of self-narratives—on part of the actors concerned. Following a decade and a half of rapprochement within the framework of Turkey’s EU membership bid, this ontological insecurity has created a longing for a return to the established conflict narratives and antagonistic identity constructions in Greece and Turkey. We show the linkage between ontological insecurity and the escalation of disputes by tracing the political and societal discourses surrounding the reconversion of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul from a museum back to a mosque.

Affective, defective, and infective narratives on social media about nuclear energy and atomic conflict during the 2022 Italian electoral campaign

In the digital age, poor public communication catalyzes the spread of disinformation within public opinion. Anyone can produce political content that can reach a global audience, and social media has become a vital tool for political leaders to convey messages to the electorate. The 2022 Italian election campaign has seen the term “nuclear” debated with two different declinations: on the one hand, regarding nuclear energy for civilian use, and on the other hand, regarding the fear of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and the use of atomic weapons. This research aims to analyze the social media debate by exploring multiplatform dynamics to qualitatively identify and analyze the connections between social media platforms that we have termed Bridges, a concept drawn from Transmedia Theory to describe the narrative relationship between platforms. The methodological approach will follow an explanatory sequential design that will rely on digital methods to identify connections between platforms (bridges) and then apply an exploratory qualitative approach to enrich the data and capture the nuances of the debate. As expected, we found polarized positions and fragmentation on both issues of civilian nuclear energy and the atomic conflict narrative. Primary evidence shows bridges spreading affective, defective, and infective content across platforms in a multifaceted social media ecosystem. Affective refers to rhetoric that appeals to people’s feelings. Defective means the discussion that brings attention to hyper-partisan news channels, fake news, and misinformation. Infective means bridges with below-the-radar platforms, niche channels, or pseudo-information channels. They use bridges with mainstream platforms to gain the potential to go viral. The paper highlights the importance of cross-platform and interdisciplinary approaches to addressing disinformation in a media ecosystem where social media plays an increasing role in a country’s democratic dynamics.

The Palestinian Operation on October 7 Between International Legitimacy and Criminalization

This study delved into the operation of Palestinian resistance on the seventh of October, navigating the realms of legitimacy and criminalization within the framework of international law. The researcher examined the historical evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, revealing a continuous onslaught, occupation, and killing endured by the Palestinian people for over 70 years. The legal foundation of the Palestinian resistance's legitimacy on the seventh of October was explored in light of international law, with the researcher concluding that the resistance exercised its right to legitimate defense in accordance with the United Nations Charter against ongoing aggression by the Israeli occupation. Furthermore, the researcher found that the resistance's actions were consistent with its exercise of the right to self-determination, as endorsed by numerous United Nations resolutions on the Palestinian issue. Finally, the study addressed Israeli allegations of massacres committed by the Palestinian resistance on the seventh of October, presenting evidence that the resistance adhered to international law in its operation and did not violate its provisions. The researcher urged the United Nations to take stricter measures, particularly through its Security Council, by activating Chapter Seven of the Charter to compel Israel to implement international resolutions. Additionally, the researcher also calls on international organizations to morally and materially support the legitimacy of Palestinian armed resistance to exercise its right to self-determination against Israeli occupation and settlement. The researcher recommended that global media listen to both sides of the conflict's narrative for journalistic credibility.