Presented at the Peace Studies 40th Anniversary Conference, 1-3 May 2014. University of Bradford.
Bosnia is characterized as a post-conflict, post-socialist, ethnically-divided, and politically unstable society. Each of these characteristics have implications for the design and implementation of research on education and its role in peacebuilding. The recent outbreak of violent protests across the nation have prompted speculation, and for many hope, of a ‘Bosnian Spring’. The increasing social unrest raises new questions about role of education in shaping Bosnia’s post-war trajectory and still elusive peace and reconciliation. Drawing on recently conducted fieldwork, my paper maps some of the dilemmas and challenges involved in researching education in this complex and volatile environment, including geopolitical constraints on data collection, structure-agency tensions, complex social categorizations, time and inter-generationality, and the entrenchment of ‘deficit’ narratives. It then highlights some conceptual and methodological choices I have made to adapt to and explore the influence of these layered complexities on formal education policy and practice in the context of state-wide peacebuilding. I conclude with some reflections on the ethics of researching peacebuilding in post-violence contexts and the potential peacebuilding role of the researcher.
Bosnia is characterized as a post-conflict, post-socialist, ethnically-divided, and politically unstable society. Each of these characteristics have implications for the design and implementation of research on education and its role in peacebuilding. The recent outbreak of violent protests across the nation have prompted speculation, and for many hope, of a ‘Bosnian Spring’. The increasing social unrest raises new questions about role of education in shaping Bosnia’s post-war trajectory and still elusive peace and reconciliation. Drawing on recently conducted fieldwork, my paper maps some of the dilemmas and challenges involved in researching education in this complex and volatile environment, including geopolitical constraints on data collection, structure-agency tensions, complex social categorizations, time and inter-generationality, and the entrenchment of ‘deficit’ narratives. It then highlights some conceptual and methodological choices I have made to adapt to and explore the influence of these layered complexities on formal education policy and practice in the context of state-wide peacebuilding. I conclude with some reflections on the ethics of researching peacebuilding in post-violence contexts and the potential peacebuilding role of the researcher.