Deconstructing positionality in conflict resolution: Reflections from first-person action research in Pakistan and the South Caucasus

Abstract

This article explores the role of first-person action research in uncovering how positionality influences conflict resolution practice. Specifically, it examines the experiences of two scholar-practitioners conducting first-person action research in different conflict/post-conflict settings. The case studies include first-person action research on encounter programs with Pakistani youth and first-person action research examining peacebuilding engagement in the South Caucasus. We highlight the significant challenge posed by positionality for scholar-practitioners in our practice and research, particularly as members of one of the conflict parties, and present first-person action research as a constructive approach to enhance self-reflexivity and improve our practices. We argue that first-person action research highlights the fluidity of positionality and the value of building insider relationships to enhance conflict resolution practice. Concurrently, this research approach illuminates challenges resulting from insider identities because of assumed agreement. Thus, first-person action research is useful for improving conflict resolution practice because it highlights the various benefits and drawbacks of practitioners’ positionalities.

Keywords

Conflict resolution peacebuilding Pakistan South Caucasus first-person action research reflective practice,positionality

In this article, we examine two first-person action research projects to clarify the utility of this approach for improving conflict resolution practice. The first author conducted first-person action research examining his experience with encounter programs involving Pakistani youth (Cromwell, 2019a), while the second author’s project involves ongoing first-person action research on her peacebuilding engagement in the South Caucasus (Tadevosyan, 2019).¹ While various scholar-practitioners have studied the value of reflection for enhancing conflict resolution and peacebuilding practice (e.g. Warfield, 2002), these accounts focus more on the process of reflection, rather than the role of positionality. This is a particular concern when the practitioner is a member of one of the opposing sides of the conflict. Moreover, although reflective practice and first-person action research refer to essentially the same process, in conflict resolution literature these processes are described as reflective practice, with little reference made to first-person action research. (For an exception, see White, 2004). We merge the first-person action research literature with scholarship on reflective practice in conflict resolution to illustrate how first-person action research can strengthen conflict resolution practitioners’ understanding of their positionality. Thus, we draw from our respective projects, where each of us were members of the conflicting groups, to illustrate how first-person action research illuminated the role of positionality in our conflict resolution engagements.

In doing so, we pose the following questions: How does first-person action research inform conflict resolution practitioners’ understanding of their positionality? What lessons can be learned from this increased understanding to improve conflict resolution practice? We argue that first-person action research is valuable for clarifying positionality in conflict resolution because it highlights the fluidity of insider and outsider roles and the importance of building insider relationships with opposing groups. Simultaneously, it elucidates the challenges of insider positionality where locals will expect the practitioner to unequivocally agree with their perspective because of their insider status.

Reflective practice and first-person action research in conflict resolution

Reflective practice refers to specific processes practitioners develop to carefully analyze their behaviors as professionals, thereby conducting research on their practice (Cheldelin et al., 2004; Schön, 1984). Another common name for reflective practice is first-person action research (Taylor et al., 2008), which is the systematic study of daily practices aimed at helping individuals understand their activities and improving future practice (Reason & Bradbury, 2008). Marshall (2004, p. 316) explained her first-person action research process as follows: “I surfaced what I was doing, treating it with curiosity, hoping to learn.” This reflection and learning occurs as part of an iterative cycle of learning, reflection, and action, where reflection on action leads to learning that informs future practice (Reason, 1999).

Reflective practice is critical for conflict resolution practitioners because of the high stakes involved in conflict interventions (Gopin, 2009; Greiff et al., 2015). The vulnerability of individuals in conflict and post-conflict settings requires practitioners and researchers to have increased awareness of the impact these interventions can have; McDonald (2013) argues that self-reflexivity helps interveners consider these impacts on locals and on themselves. Similarly, Warfield (2002) explains that interveners often confront ethical dilemmas in conflict contexts. He proposes the use of a model based on reflective practice to analyze the situation and determine the most ethical course of action. Other scholar-practitioners also recognize the need for improving practice in the field by developing and enhancing the reflexivity of practitioners (e.g. Allen Nan et al., 2011; Gamaghelyan, 2017).

This focus on reflective practice in conflict resolution is particularly evident in peacebuilding evaluation literature. Improving peacebuilding evaluation involves making theories of change more explicit to identify key indicators to assess such efforts (Allen Nan, 2010). Action evaluation is one method aimed at clearly identifying the specific goals of a project’s different stakeholders to find points of consensus and develop explicit measures to monitor and evaluate them (Rothman & Friedman, 2002). Similarly, Lederach et al. (2007) emphasize that evaluation is an ongoing learning and reflective exercise that should be aimed at consistently improving practice, rather than assessing a final result. Essentially, the thread running through this literature is that more could be done by conflict resolution and peacebuilding practitioners to carefully study the underlying assumptions that guide their practice. Clearly identifying these assumptions can clarify a project’s goals, elucidate how to measure the project’s success, and facilitate learning that contributes to peace beyond the project itself (Ross, 2000). Practitioners like Susan Allen (personal communication) argue that action evaluation is, in essence, conflict resolution practice as this process is built around a continuous loop of reflection, learning, and implementation. This same loop is fundamental to first-person action research because of its focus on reflection, learning, and improving practice.

First-person action research, positionality, and conflict resolution

First-person action research and positionality

First-person action research can be particularly useful in investigating how positionality affects an individual’s interactions during practice or research (Burgess, 2006). Positionality refers to the relationship between a researcher/practitioner and the population with whom they work, and how they are seen as insiders or outsiders, depending on their various positions in relation to community members (such as their age, race, gender, culture, professional role, et cetera) (Merriam et al., 2001). While early approaches to positionality generally presented a dichotomous position of either insiders or outsiders, recent scholarship has complicated these roles (Muhammad et al., 2015). These contemporary approaches underline the interpretative nature of positionality, namely that it is not only influenced by sex, race, and other categories but also “shaped by shared meanings and practices within specific historical or power contexts” (Mendoza et al., 2002; Muhammad et al., 2015, p. 1048). First-person action research can illuminate some of the complexities surrounding these various roles, and how to negotiate between them, because of its focus on continuous reflexive processes aimed at uncovering taken-for-granted practices (Kidd et al., 2014).

Deconstructing positionality

Recognizing that the dichotomous approach to positionality is limiting, Banks (1998) developed a more nuanced categorization that accounts for the researcher’s/practitioner’s own background and their socialization in different ethnic, national, and cultural communities. Elaborating on Merton’s (1972) insider-outsider and Collins’ (1990) outsider-within conceptualizations, Banks describes four positionalities: indigenous-insider, indigenous-outsider, external-insider, and external-outsider. According to his typology, indigenous-insiders share values and cultural norms with their indigenous group and are perceived within the community as legitimate members who can speak authoritatively about the group’s experiences. Indigenous-outsiders are those who, while sharing cultural, ethnic, racial and other backgrounds with the community, also have assimilated into outside communities, and thus are perceived as outsiders. In contrast, external-insiders’ unique life experiences make them accepted by other communities with whom they interact because they drift from their indigenous communities and integrate the values and beliefs of these other communities. Thus, these other communities usually perceive these individuals as “adopted” insiders. And finally, external-outsiders are seen as having “partial understanding of and little appreciation for the values, perspectives, and knowledge of the community” they study and are often criticized by members of these communities (Banks, 1998, p. 8).

As Banks’ typology highlights, the definitions of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ are fluid and deeply contextual (Thomson and Gunter, 2011), resulting in ‘outsiders’ connecting with local populations as external-insiders in some situations, and certain ‘insiders’ being treated as indigenous-outsiders because of particular characteristics that separate them from locals. For instance, Johnson-Bailey (1999) describes, in her study involving Black women, that even though she was a Black woman, some participants saw her as an indigenous-outsider because of class differences and/or her lighter skin.

Positionality in conflict resolution

Positionality is a key consideration in conflict resolution and peacebuilding practice. For example, tensions frequently arise between insider locals and outsider international experts over ownership and implementation of peacebuilding processes (Donais, 2009). Although peacebuilding scholars and practitioners have emphasized the importance of learning from and empowering insider local populations, standard peacebuilding practices tend to alienate outside interveners from locals and prioritize technical know-how over local expertise (Autesserre, 2014). Additionally, Tadevosyan (2019) argues that local conflict resolution practitioners are often seen as outsiders in their own communities and this positionality impacts their conflict resolution practice. Consequently, scholars argue that practitioners should reflect on their positioning because it can constrain or improve their capacity to intervene (e.g. Gopin, 2009). Additionally, conflict resolution students are increasingly taught to thoughtfully consider their positionality because of its influences on their practice (Cromwell, 2019b).

Bringing the literature together, while extensive scholarship on reflective practice in conflict resolution exists, this literature mostly focuses on the process of reflection, learning, and action. Moreover, although the role of positionality in peacebuilding has been explored, there is much less understanding of the reflection, learning, and action cycle related to the positionality of scholar-practitioners in conflict and post-conflict environments. This is particularly important in comprehending how this cycle illuminates the daily challenges of positionality resulting from intervening as one of the conflict parties, and lessons for how to mitigate these challenges. Through describing our experiences conducting first-person action research in different conflict/post-conflict settings, and reflecting on our positionality using Banks’ model, we illustrate how the positioning of conflict resolution practitioners vis-à-vis their community of engagement impacts their practice and research. Each author is a member of one of the conflict groups in the cases we examined; therefore, we use first-person action research to reflect on our multiple insider and outsider positionalities, how they shifted depending on the context, and their impact across the conflict settings.

Our approach

In what follows, we outline the conflict contexts of the two cases explored in this study and describe the projects in Pakistan and the South Caucasus. We systematically reflected on our conflict resolution experiences as members of the conflict and collected data with local populations in these contexts to develop a richer understanding of our own practice. This similarity in design led us to face similar challenges, despite differences in conflict region, our positionality related to our participants, and the specific foci of our projects. Below, each of us reflects on our first-person action research engagements from a first-person perspective. This approach allows us to interrogate our positionalities and their influence on our interactions with locals in our respective projects.

One particular quality issue in insider action research involves how researchers can analyze the significance of their findings beyond their personal experiences (Coghlan & Holian, 2007). Relatedly, first-person action research is constrained by the individual narratives and sense-making processes of each researcher (Marshall, 2004). Thus, by bringing together our projects, we enhanced the validity of our reflections by examining how they spoke to issues of positionality across our different cases.

To systematize our reflections and provide additional validity to our data, we both joined the Action Research Working Group (ARWG) at our university from fall 2017 to spring 2018. ARWG created a structured space where we presented our research and practice and engaged in guided reflection with other colleagues. These monthly meetings encouraged purposeful reflexivity that led to deconstructing our positionalities. Additionally, Cromwell maintained a journal including his reflective observations from his interactions with Pakistani youth, while Tadevosyan has had multiple reflection and planning meetings with local practitioners from the South Caucasus with whom she continues her practice.

First-person action research with Pakistani youth – Cromwell

Conflict in Pakistan

Violence in Pakistan has led to the death of over 63,000 people since 2000 (South Asia Terrorism Portal, 2019), as a result of suicide bombings committed by the Taliban and various other terrorist groups, the Pakistani government’s multiple offensives against these groups, and US drone strikes. Additionally, Pakistan and India have had four wars with each other since the violent partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, three of which were over Kashmir. Violence continues over the disputed region, along with sectarian violence between Sunnis, Shias, and other minority sects, target killings, and violence between Baluchi insurgent groups and Pakistani military and security officials. Due to competing political and security interests that involve Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, the US, and multiple jihadist groups, the conflict and instability continues (Khan, 2011). This creates negative attitudes in the Pakistani population towards many of these groups, and a challenging environment for youth peacebuilding.

Examining encounter programs with Pakistani youth

In this article, I reflect on my conflict resolution practice involving encounter programs with Pakistani youth in 2011 and 2012 and interactions during my dissertation fieldwork with alumni in Pakistan in 2015 (Cromwell, 2019a). My fieldwork examined four programs that brought youth to the US to facilitate these encounters. The programs examined were the Benjamin Franklin Summer Institute with South and Central Asia (BFSI), the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES), the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (UGRAD), and Study of the US Institutes for Student Leaders (SUSI). All four programs aimed to facilitate mutual understanding between Pakistanis and Americans, emphasized leadership and community service, and encouraged alumni’s follow-on activities upon their return.

My encounter with encounter programs

My experience as a resident assistant for BFSI in 2011 and 2012 inspired this research. The program brought together roughly 45 youth from Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, India, and the United States for one month. It created a space where individuals could engage across lines of difference and dialogue about conflicts in their communities and between/among the different nations, religions, and ethnic groups represented by participants and staff. This approach resulted in participants developing close relationships with each other and with the staff. Our identity changed to that of a “BFSI family,” and I personally felt like I was part of this family.

I vividly remember staying up all night with participants on their last night; I wished our time together did not have to end. As we drove to the airport the next day, my stomach felt hollow and my throat was tight. Tears burned my eyes as I thought about life without my new family. My connection with these youth after just one month was as strong as anything I had experienced with anyone. Moreover, this connection was profound because, while I did not have explicit prejudices towards Pakistanis or Muslims before the program, I am unsure if I really thought they were the same as me. Developing these close ties transformed this view; the participants became my younger brothers and sisters. Upon reflecting on the experience, I realized it taught me that encounters across difference could resolve conflicts through transforming relationships. It confirmed (for me) the importance of enemy groups connecting across divides to build sustainable peace (Gopin, 2009; Lederach, 1997). I had learned this idea through my graduate coursework, but BFSI made it a reality. These experiences represent the reflection and learning portions of the reflection, learning, and action cycle.

However, as Marshall (2004) explains, this understanding was far from the whole picture, as any individual account will always be. It represents one interpretation of an experience involving many individuals with their own perspectives. I seek here to deepen my reflection on these initial reactions and explore what they illustrate about the utility of first-person action research for conflict resolution practice. Furthermore, in my interviews and focus groups in Pakistan in 2015, I sought to understand how participants made sense of transformations in their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors resulting from similar program experiences. Thus, following Marshall (2016, p. 8), I characterize this work as “first-person inquiry in collaborative relationships with others.” This is because my inquiry focused on improving my own practice (rather than that of my research participants) through systematic reflection. I drew from my data collection on participants’ transformations to augment this understanding. Moreover, these interactions created opportunities to further understand how positionality influences conflict resolution practice and research as I deepened my relationships with BFSI alumni and connected with other Pakistani youth. Thus, the reflection, learning, and action cycle illustrates how reflecting on these experiences illuminated my shift in positionality (reflection) and what I learned about encounter programs transforming how enemy groups view one another (learning). It also shows how the experience compelled me to investigate the impact of these programs (action). Presenting this research to the ARWG helped me clarify these connections across the reflection, learning, and action cycle because the group’s feedback prompted me to deeply reflect on my positionality.

Reflections on positionality and negotiating multiple roles in Pakistan

Part of a BFSI family. Participants’ view of me was greatly shaped by my role as a Resident Assistant for BFSI. As described above, the program created an environment where participants and staff connected as a “family.” Here is how one alumnus explains these interactions: “The first day [of BFSI] we were a bit reluctant because […] we were strangers and we had come from different countries, but […] after a week it almost felt like I was living with my family.” Many participants emphasized this family connection as central to their program experience, and 93 percent (55/59) attributed their positive transformations towards the enemy group to the relationships they built during these programs. This connection even went beyond the two years I was involved in the program. As a participant from BFSI 2010 expressed: “I don’t know how, but there is a connection. It’s like I have a connection with you as well, and we didn’t even meet there. […] It’s just the BFSI thing. Nobody would understand but us.”

These close relationships made participants feel comfortable sharing honestly with me about their experience in the program and how it changed them. They reflected on their stereotypes and prejudices before the program, the challenges they faced, and their experiences in the US that transformed these views. For example, multiple participants explained that, before they came to the US, they were scared that Americans would hate them or call them terrorists; they were surprised when US individuals were kind to them. Thus, my external-insider positionality created the trust necessary for participants to openly describe their previous negative views of enemy groups (including groups of which I was part) and how these views transformed. This suggests that the insider identities created by encounter programs can open space for robust sharing between groups across conflict differences.

However, because of these close relationships, I was concerned participants might only focus on their positive experiences to help me with my research. Therefore, I repeatedly asked them if my understanding accurately reflected their views and encouraged them to speak of negative experiences. One participant became frustrated because of how many times I questioned if his transformations came from BFSI, saying: “Of course this is because of BFSI!” While I take this as a good sign that I raised critical questions in some interviews, in carefully reviewing the transcripts, I found instances where I may have unduly encouraged positive responses. For example, in one interview I asked, “Were you crying a lot when you left [the US]?” This may have prompted the participant to exaggerate her closeness with other participants and staff.

Building trust with the broader network. Only 15 of the study’s 59 participants were from BFSI (and only 11 from the years I worked on the program). Other participants did not have relationships with me before data collection because I connected with them through snowball sampling.

Participants had many questions about why I had come to Pakistan. Often, they appreciated what they described as my “courage” for visiting their country, since not many Americans travel to Pakistan because of its security situation and the resulting negative media portrayals. This helped build their trust in me. I also developed rapport with alumni by describing my experience building relationships with BFSI participants and how these relationships transformed my perspective. Many alumni from other programs then saw me as similar to the staff and mentors from their respective programs. Additionally, I connected with participants by describing my previously held fear that I would be kidnapped or die in a bombing in Pakistan. This personal disclosure also helped participants trust me and be more forthcoming in their descriptions of how their respective program transformed them. As an excerpt from my journal written on December 12, 2015 illustrates:

Being here [in Pakistan…] allowed me to explain my own stereotypes and what I learned about what things are really like in Pakistan: that not everyone is a terrorist, that I won’t be kidnapped, that there are not bombings everywhere. […] This [honesty] has really helped me in bridge building.

Tell the American what he wants to hear. However, Pakistani alumni were also influenced by the fact that they were talking to a white American, who they likely saw as representing the US. Although Pakistan and the US are allies, conflict between the two has been exacerbated by Pakistan’s support of anti-US insurgent groups fighting the US in Afghanistan and US drone strikes within Pakistan’s borders. According to Pew Research data, anti-American sentiment in Pakistan has been constant even before the War on Terror, with only 23% of the Pakistani population viewing the US favorably in 2000 and 22% seeing the US favorably in 2015 (Wike et al., 2015).

Because of the strong negative sentiment towards Americans in Pakistan and the lack of Americans traveling to the country, my positionality as an American and my research participants’ identities as Pakistanis were particularly salient. I have noticed that, in these instances when people try to build positive relationships across opposing groups, they tend to overemphasize their group’s mistakes and downplay the other group’s problems. For example, when discussing conflicts in Pakistan with alumni, I found myself pausing and trying to soften my language regarding issues of violence, terrorism, corruption, or marginalization of particular groups. This occurred more often with alumni whom I met for the first time at the interview. At the time, the November 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris and the December San Bernardino attack were still fresh in the minds of the world, and anti-Muslim rhetoric readily flowed through American political discourse. As such, I did not want alumni to think I also held these negative views. This topic came up explicitly in multiple conversations. For example, one participant asked: “were you scared to come to Pakistan, especially after the California incident (referring to San Bernardino)?” The San Bernardino attack was particularly salient for youth because it was perpetrated by an American with Pakistani heritage and a Pakistani national.

Similarly, participants likely softened their language in speaking to me about American ills. For instance, alumni emphasized the difference between governments and people. As one alumnus explained: “…it might be a problem, government to government, but the people are great.” Expressing this sentiment allowed alumni to hint at aspects they disliked about the US government, without sharing anything I might take offense to. Thus, alumni may have highlighted their positive experiences in the US instead of their remaining doubts about the country because of my external-outsider status as an American.

Despite these challenges, I sensed I could trust alumni because many of them shared negative experiences they had while in the US and the challenges they faced upon returning to Pakistan. For example, alumni described extra screening at US airports, how Americans questioned them about their possible membership in ISIS, and how US students made snide comments about participants coming from the country where Osama Bin Laden was discovered. Alumni also described challenges they faced upon returning to Pakistan, such as people labeling them as CIA agents and making jokes about them being brainwashed by Americans. Participants who regularly attended alumni events were also questioned by Pakistani security personnel, who inquired why these alumni were actively involved with US-funded programs. Although I was an external-outsider as an American, because of my external-insider identity from being affiliated with these programs, many alumni trusted me enough to describe these challenges and speak candidly about their transformations.

First person action research in the South Caucasus – Tadevosyan

Conflicts in the South Caucasus

The ongoing conflicts in the South Caucasus rapidly unfolded with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost 30 years after the political and social restructuring of the former Soviet space, individuals in the region continue to struggle to build sustainable peace.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are the three internationally recognized countries in the region. Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh are the three de facto states that continue to fight for self-determination and formal international recognition.

These lingering ethnopolitical conflicts negatively affect many aspects of life in the region. Closed borders complicate or often impede the freedom of movement for ordinary citizens, while continued tensions on the contact line (Armenia-Azerbaijan; Azerbaijan–Nagorno-Karabakh) result in several dozen deaths annually. Abduction and/or detention of the residents of border villages (Georgia-South Ossetia) create a political, social, and economic environment that is prone to human rights violations.

Reflections on my personal background

Below is the first-person account of my experience as a conflict resolution practitioner in the South Caucasus, my continued engagement with local peace activists, and my dissertation research in the region from 2015–2017. My entire work, both past and present, is deeply influenced by my life-long personal experience. I was born in Armenia and my childhood was marked by the devastating and bloody war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Years later, after my undergraduate studies, I interned in Washington, DC for an Armenian lobbying organization that, among other issues, was supporting the political process around the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Reflecting on that summer, I realize it was a turning point for me to pursue conflict resolution. Here is where the first cycle of reflection, learning, and action emerged. Conflict resolution was one of the issue areas of the organization with which I was interning; however, similar to the majority of DC-based organizations, this organization was also engaged in policy lobbying. This contributed to even more division and polarization between the parties. Despite this negative impact, as an Armenian I was expected to support these positions. Reflecting on these contradictions led me to recognize alternatives to these polarizing positions, which also convinced me to pursue my Master’s degree in conflict resolution.

Later on, simultaneous to starting a PhD program, I began working on a donor-funded Georgian-South Ossetian dialogue process led by this same university. This work entailed convening and facilitating dialogue processes, analytical conferences, and other activities with Georgian, South Ossetian, and occasionally Abkhaz NGO representatives. My collaborative practice revealed challenges local peacebuilders faced extending the impact of their community work and the declining public support for peacebuilding and reconciliation dialogue. Reflection on these issues led to the goal of my dissertation research: to provide these communities of local peacebuilders with actionable steps to improve their peacebuilding practices. This was the second loop of reflection, learning, and action. If during the first loop my identity and subsequent positionality was much simpler because of my physical location (I was studying in Armenia) and the limited nature of my engagements (I was just an MA student), with the evolution of my academic and professional career, my positionality shifted significantly due to the changes in my physical and work environments. As illustrated below, engaging with local peacebuilders required me not only to become aware of my different roles and positionalities in relation to them, but also to critically reflect on my own identities and experiences that conditioned these positionalities.

Reflections on positionality and negotiating multiple roles in the South Caucasus

One of us. My own ethnic background as an Armenian was obviously the main identifier that stood out for most participants in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh (NK). Armenia and NK have the same ethnic population with a very strongly shared national identity that was further enhanced by the Karabakh war against Azerbaijan. This shared identity created an environment of trust where the participants could describe their projects, roles, and perspectives on peacebuilding and reconciliation. My positionality as an indigenous-insider created an expectation that I had a pre-existing understanding of social and political developments in the country and region. This facilitated deep and rich reflections from my interviewees from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. However, this shared national identity also became a significant impediment when moving to more controversial and uncomfortable questions. For example, one Armenian interviewee became visibly upset answering a question about their tense relations with a well-known/respected organization in Azerbaijan: “… you don’t know them… you don’t understand all the nuances… it is easy to see only the outside façade.” The expectation that I was “one of them” and should share the same patriotic views and positions often meant that I had to frame my questions in more “diplomatic” and less straightforward ways not to offend the participants. While this did not mean that I avoided important questions, I made a conscious effort to act upon this particular aspect of my positionality. Most importantly, this experience underlines the fluidity of positionality and its impact on practitioner engagement. First-person action research allowed me to recognize my quickly shifting positionalities and to alter my practice accordingly.

My Armenian identity, which implied not only knowledge of the region, but also personal experience with the conflict, positioned me as an external-insider in my conversations with Georgian, South Ossetian and Abkhaz NGO representatives. The expectations of shared political fraternity and solidarity were particularly obvious in conversations with the representatives of NGOs from the de facto states. They implicitly hinted that I should empathize with them because of my Armenian identity and the similar challenges faced by the NK and Armenian peoples. One of the South Ossetian participants, describing their unwillingness to support forums involving the Georgian government, stressed: “…would you want to be in the same room with somebody from the Azerbaijani government and hear their official line over and over again?” Reflecting on this aspect of my positionality, I asked myself whether my participants were expecting me to make assumptions based on their answers. To ensure I was not abusing my external-insider positionality, I urged my participants to explain their responses and asked many “why” questions, thus encouraging them to more deeply reflect on their practices.

Talking to the enemy. While in previous cases my national identity helped in establishing contact and creating a conversation-conducive platform for meaningful reflection, with NGOs from Azerbaijan, my national identity became a significant impediment. It was the elephant in the room that was masked by the mutual professionalism of my research participants and me. First-person action research heightened my awareness that, in this case, it was my “enemy” identity that was under the spotlight; thus, my positionality as an external-outsider was front and center. This made it extremely uncomfortable for me to ask questions that required the participants to be critically reflective of their own society and government. The solution was to anchor my questions around international examples to encourage critical reflexivity detached from the immediate perception of national pride. However, I worried that my “enemy” identity would negatively impact the sincerity of participants’ answers and that participants would choose to present their societies and government in a better light. To ensure that my positionality did not significantly alter participants’ responses, I tried to anchor my questions on reported facts and statements made by international and regional experts. For example, when exploring the NGO-government relationship, I asked participants to comment on the State Department’s or Freedom House’s assessment of the human rights situation in Azerbaijan, rather than formulating the critical question myself.

During the ARWG meetings, I presented these challenges to my peers and learned about their challenges as well. Collective reflection on issues that we as a community of conflict resolution practitioners faced helped me to systematically examine these experiences and understand how my positionality influenced these interactions.

Young female in a patriarchal culture. My age and gender are foundational to all my positionalities, and my self-reflexivity made me extremely aware of how these two components impacted my research and practice. I am a young female engaging in a highly political topic in male-dominated societies. During one of the regular debriefing sessions with a mentor and a colleague, I was able to reflect on my interactions with the communities I work with and identify that often the halo of “the little girl” follows me throughout my research and practice. Being perceived as a “little girl” surprisingly is very helpful in generating engaging conversations and reflections from participants. However, the same “little girl” is not expected to question or express doubts about the validity of the accounts presented. For example, during planning and reflection meetings, some of our local project partners expressed frustration when I cross-referenced their stories with our previous practices, reports of international organizations, and other sources. The self-reflexivity built into first-person action research allowed me to recognize that these local practitioners saw a mismatch between my positionality and their own identity. This mismatch made them wonder if I was the rightly positioned person to question their practices.

Lessons for conflict resolution practice

The examples above demonstrate how our positionality influenced our conflict resolution practice and research. They illustrate the fluidity of positionality and the significance of positioning in altering relationships with locals in conflict contexts. It takes a certain amount of relationship-building for conflict resolution practitioners to be seen as external-insiders; at the same time, being recognized as an external-insider creates further opportunities for building trust and relationships. Cromwell’s external-insider positionality resulting from his relationship to BFSI not only created meaningful connections with BFSI participants, but also with other alumni who had similar connections to Americans. Tadevosyan may have struggled with developing these connections because her positioning with her participants from Azerbaijan prevented them from seeing her as an external-insider. This made it more difficult for her to build trust with these individuals. The lesson for conflict resolution practitioners may be that, when intervening from the opposing side of a conflict, simply being aware of positionality is not enough. The more the practitioner is able to create space to build relationships and become an external-insider, the more effective they will be in further strengthening relationships across the conflict divide. Ultimately, they will have more efficacy in resolving the conflict because of these connections (Gopin, 2009; Lederach, 1997).

However, our findings also demonstrate the challenges resulting from insider identities. When Tadevosyan questioned other Armenians about their view of the enemy group, they felt betrayed and, in some instances, positioned her as an indigenous-outsider who did not really understand the context. As an external-insider with the South Ossetian and Abkhaz NGO representatives, she had to critically question their responses, as they assumed she would automatically empathize with their struggles. Cromwell also carefully challenged his participants’ responses because they likely assumed he thought highly of the programs he was researching, as an external-insider previously involved in them.

Another lesson was that, although we had different positionings related to our various interlocutors, we both experienced benefits and drawbacks because of our positionalities. This finding further strengthens the idea that positionality is an important consideration for conflict resolution practitioners as they intervene in any conflict context. While reflecting and learning from challenges faced in peacebuilding projects can improve future practice (Warfield, 2002), such reflection will be incomplete if it does not consider the practitioner’s relationships to the different parties on the ground.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article was to bridge the fields of first-person action research and reflective practice in conflict resolution. We sought to illustrate the utility of this type of research for improving conflict resolution practice because of its emphasis on positionality. We reflected on our respective first-person action research projects and highlighted how our approach illuminated the role of positionality in our interactions across various conflict contexts. Specifically, we examined our various insider and outsider statuses as parties to the conflict, and how these statuses shifted according to Banks’ (1998) framework based on our relationships with various actors. We extracted three lessons from this examination. First, building external-insider relationships across conflict divides is critical because of the trust developed from such relationships. This trust can lay the foundation for future positive interactions between enemy groups. Second, insider identities (whether indigenous-insider or external-insider) can result in assumed agreement, making it hard to raise questions or challenge these assumptions. Finally, positionality is an essential consideration for conflict resolution practitioners because of the multiple ways it constrains practitioners’ possibilities, but also the advantages it presents. First-person action research is therefore a valuable tool for conflict resolution experts as they consider their positionality and how it influences their efficacy in contributing to the resolution of conflicts around the globe.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the members of the Action Research Working Group at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, the editors of this special issue, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments in developing this article. We would also like to thank Daniel Boerger and Harry Nitzberg for editing the document and references. We are also grateful to our participants in Pakistan and the South Caucasus. We welcome and invite your comments and reactions at our action research community’s interactive ARJ blog housed at AR+

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Alexander Cromwell

Margarita Tadevosyan

Note

Author biographies

Alexander Cromwell is a Professorial Lecturer and the Associate Director, Dean’s Scholars and Experiential Learning at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. His research focuses on encounter-based peace education and youth peacebuilding in conflict contexts, and he has investigated these topics with Pakistani, Afghan, Indonesian, and US youth. His work has been published in the International Journal of Educational Development, the Journal of Peace Education, and in edited volumes. In addition to his research, Cromwell has led conflict resolution trainings for groups from the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the US. Most recently, he has been working as a peacebuilding facilitator for Project Common Bond, a camp that works with youth who lost a family member through war, terrorism, or violence. He previously taught at American University and George Mason, where he received his PhD from the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Margarita Tadevosyan is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Peacemaking Practice. She is a scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution and has extensive experience in convening and facilitating Track II reconciliation workshops primarily in the South Caucasus. For many years she has been collaborating with Dr. Susan Allen on facilitating conflict resolution workshops across the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict divide. She has also been involved in other forms of analytical work and conflict resolution practice in the South Caucasus working with Turkish-Armenian and Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict contexts. Tadevosyan joined the Carter School as a full-time Research Faculty in 2020 after spending a year conducting privately funded research on preventing violent conflict and teaching as an adjunct faculty at the School of International Service at American University. Dr. Tadevosyan is Carter School alumna with a PhD earned in 2019. Dr. Tadevosyan’s current research centers around generating improved evidence on preventing violent conflict available to donors, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars in the peacebuilding community. As a post-doctoral fellow of the Center’s Better Evidence Project Dr. Tadevosyan is working on research that will provide a wide range community of stakeholders with a better understanding of local conflict prevention and violence reduction practices and will generate updated and new evidence on the local perspective of the effectiveness of peace practices.

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