Paper short abstract:

Paper long abstract:

The emotional and psychological imperative to record the stories of those who suffered as a result of conflict and political violence presents key methodological dilemmas for scholars: namely, how best to access the nuance and complexity of traumatic experience, on both an individual and collective level; and also how to begin to create cosmos from chaos. Research with victims should not be constricted by relativist epistemological parameters that can facilitate the exoneration of perpetrators of violence. Rather, it is possible to conduct interview research that empowers those without a voice, that is done within a morally normative framework, and which enables and encourages researchers to empathise with the experiences of respondents. In this presentation I will discuss the contested notion that anthropological researchers must abrogate or ‘suspend’ moral evaluations when in the field. I will offer some of my own personal reflections of spending time researching victimhood in Northern Ireland, using the interview as a key way of collecting stories of the past. I will argue that interview research can illuminate various ‘hidden’ discourses that have been hitherto unknown. Having been embedded within a community of people that are slow to trust and share information, in the context of a post-violence society, I will discuss the heuristic value of the interview, and how it can function to assist researchers in finding the ‘secret order’ within the apparent disorder of groups who feel subjugated, disconnected and marginalised. The presentation will conclude by arguing that anthropologists can develop a rigorous methodological framework that does not objectify, essentialise or falsely homogenise people; and which instead has at its core moral, transformative and cathartic qualities for both researchers and respondents.