From Data to Knowledge: Understanding peace and conflict from afar (seminar series)

This series begins with a set of questions which UN peacekeepers, aid workers, governments, researchers and conflict analysts are increasingly troubled by: how do we know what we know about fragile and conflict-affected regions and how far do our understandings reflect - and take account of - the views and perspectives of communities living in these regions? Bringing together leading scholars and partners in the worlds of policy and practice - including Save the Children, the UK Government (DFID and FCO), OECD and Somalia NGO Consortium (Somalia NGOC), Nairobi - the series will provide a critical and innovative set of fora for analysing how conflict knowledge is generated and disseminated - and with what implications for research and policy in the UK and abroad.

This exploration comes in the context of a growing focus by Western governments and organizations on working on, and in, fragile and conflict-affected regions. The UK Government - now legally committed to spending at least 0.7% of GNI on international development - has steadily re-focused its aid portfolio around fragile states since the later 2000s and these countries now absorb over one-third of the DFID budget. Similar trends are apparent among other Western aid donors and organizations as well as among NGOs and researchers whose funding is often tied to these bodies and their agendas. Along with the UN, the militaries of developing states are also increasingly involved in peacekeeping and statebuilding exercises in fragile regions and polities.

Alongside these developments, however, have emerged a number of issues which actively limit Western actors' ability to gain direct access to - and understandings of - communities living in fragile contexts. The growing number of UN and aid workers now being targeted by criminal and terrorist groups in conflict zones has led most Western organizations to introduce risk management procedures which ultimately reduce direct interaction between the 'international' and the 'local'. This includes the creation of heavily-fortified aid 'compounds' to house aid workers and their families, the collection of data from afar (via drones or other technologies, for example) and the remote management of projects. Thus DFID's Somalia Office (a Project Partner for the series) is based in neighbouring Kenya.

This culture of risk aversion has also steadily come to curtail the ability of Western researchers and NGOs to live and work in regions viewed as too remote or dangerous by insurance providers, ethics committees or managers. Thus these communities also increasingly rely on ever-distant chains of 'local' interlocutors and mediators to gather data or implement projects - in a Western political context where ensuring clear and measurable developmental results for all aid disbursed is paramount.

This series of research seminars will pose and engage with several key questions and concerns which emerge from these various paradoxes. Most prominently - what tools and methodologies can be used to collect conflict data remotely and to what extent can they replace or substitute more direct forms of information-gathering? To what extent can - or should - different social and cultural understandings be reflected in the collection and interpretation of 'local knowledge'? What role do local actors play in mediating or resisting the generation of knowledge on - and in - their communities? How is conflict 'data' transposed into conflict 'knowledge' and how far does Western policy and research on conflict regions take account of local perspectives?

The series engages with a prominent set of debates in contemporary policy-making circles and global scholarship across a range of disciplines, notably Politics, International Relations, Development Studies, Economics and Anthropology. The participation of early-career researchers and scholars from the developing world is a key focus of the series and enhances its strength and credibility.

In this series of Research Seminars, non-academic actors and organizations are not simply regarded as audiences but as stakeholders - and the core team, seminar outline and participant list have been designed with this in mind.

UK policy-makers

The UK government - through DFID and the FCO particularly - is heavily involved in many conflict and post-conflict zones as an aid donor, diplomatic mediator or representative, as a military actor and as a trainer of fragile states' militaries, police forces and civil servants. Since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, however, there has been growing public and political pressure on Whitehall to more clearly and precisely delineate how these funds are being spent, demonstrate their effectiveness and justify their continued size in the 'age of austerity'. This emphasis has been reinforced under the Coalition Government who have placed focus on 'results-based' aid and 'showing the British public where every penny of their money goes and the difference it makes'.

In this environment, FCO and DFID officials will benefit very significantly from the series given its focus on exploring how data on fragile contexts can be collected and on interrogating the reliability and validity of this data and its interpretations. These discussions are valuable to policy-makers in terms of planning effective interventions but also to ministers and their staff who must explain and justify how funds disbursed have impacted positively on the ground. This interest is testified to by the letters of support and the pledge by the FCO and DFID to act as project partners for the series and to send representatives to the seminars.

Western policy-makers and UN officials

Other Western government officials and UN actors involved in fragile states will also benefit significantly from this series for similar reasons to their UK counterparts (the OECD have also pledged to send representatives to at least two seminars and to act as project partners). Key diplomatic, developmental and UN representatives from the wider policy community will therefore be involved in the Nairobi seminar as speakers and participants.

Southern governments and institutions

The focus and ethos of the series renders it of significant interest to the governments of fragile and conflict-affected states whose societies are often the object of knowledge production and whose structures often act to promote or undermine external access and data-gathering. Exchange between these governments and the other networks built during the series will therefore be promoted by holding the final seminar at Somalia NGO Consortium (Somalia NGOC)'s offices in Nairobi. Somalia NGOC have strong links to the Kenyan and wider policy community in Nairobi and this event will allow for an open exchange with these actors on the themes and provisional findings of the series.

NGOs, advocacy and campaign organizations

NGOs and third sector organizations (in the UK and the South) will also be interested in the series' themes to assist with the effectiveness of their own interventions and programmes (from the international to the local level) and to foster closer networks of collaboration and understanding between external information gatherers and 'local' information providers. Save the Children and Somalia NGOC are therefore built-into the series as CIs (Fiori and Jalovec) and seminar hosts and will reach out through their networks in the policy research and advocacy communities, both in the UK and Kenya, as seminars are held, networks built and outputs produced.

Public engagement

The series will engage UK media outlets and the UK public throughout the series by working with the University of Birmingham press office to identify opportunities for placing articles, opinion pieces or other outputs. The team will also consider running an ESRC Festival of Social Sciences event as a means to engage more directly with the public.