Researching Violent Conflicts Using Comparative Multi-Sites Fieldwork

Abstract

This research project, based on my PhD dissertation, examines the challenges of researching violent conflicts using comparative multi-sites fieldwork. It focuses in particular on “Sons of the Soil” (SoS) conflict, or violent conflicts between ethnically distinct migrant and native populations. Migration affects nearly every locality in the world, yet violent clashes between migrants and locals remain the exception rather than the norm. Under what conditions does internal migration lead to SoS conflicts? Based on extensive fieldwork in six regions of China and Indonesia, I argue that large and consistent socio-economic and political horizontal inequalities between migrants and locals is a key condition explaining why some minority regions erupt in SoS conflicts, while others remain relatively quiet. Researching violent conflict via comparative multi-sites fieldwork is, however, challenging. Securing institutional affiliation and governmental approval for each research locations takes time and can be particularly arduous in high-conflict regions. Besides, as conflicts are dynamic, their very nature may change as we study them, complicating our neat typology/classification. Previously calm regions may, for instance, suddenly turn violent. Finally, opportunities may emerge to integrate new case studies, for example, via the release of new data or the “opening/closing” of regions to foreign researchers. Still, a comparative cross-national and sub-national analysis using case studies drawing evidence from extensive fieldwork offers the most sensitivity to the limitations of existing data on migration, ethnicity, and SoS conflicts, and yields important benefits to the study of migration-related violence.

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