Professor Gearoid Millar
Small Group Project 2016-17
Ethnographic Peace Research Workshop: Examining Strengths, Challenges, and Ethics
This project will fund a workshop to examine the strengths, challenges and ethics of an Ethnographic Peace Research (EPR) agenda and develop guidelines for the future of this emerging but as yet unproven approach to Peace Studies research. EPR is an umbrella term used to describe an approach within the broader field of Peace and Conflict Studies which incorporates various qualitative methodologies to examine and understand the local understandings, perceptions and experiences of international interventions (such as peacekeeping, post-conflict development, or governance and judicial reforms) among those living within conflict or post-conflict states. As such, EPR may incorporate methods such as long-term fieldwork, participant observation, semi-structured interviewing, grounded theory, or collaborative knowledge production.
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Biography
Millar's research focuses on the local experiences of international interventions for peace, justice, and development in post-conflict states, with particular empirical grounding in Sierra Leone. Their early work developed an ethnographic approach to examining how local communities understand and evaluate internationally planned and administered peacebuilding projects — resulting in a first monograph published by Routledge in 2014, and further methodological volumes from Palgrave (2018) and Routledge (2019). Theoretical contributions include work on hybrid peace structures (Journal of Peace Research, 2014), friction between international and local actors (International Peacekeeping, 2013), and the complex systemic nature of peace and conflict (Peacebuilding, 2020; Journal of Peace Research, 2021).
Biographical details correct as of 21.05.26