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Paper short abstract:

This paper employs critical decolonial lens to expand on ongoing discussions on methodological turn in Internationa Relations brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. It argues that COVID-19 accelerated localisation of fieldwork should afford us critical tool to investigate local research relationships.

Paper long abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic and international travel restrictions accelerated localisation of peacebuilding research. As a PhD student during COVID-19, I had to rescope my research design to work remotely with local researchers to conduct fieldwork in Uganda. The local researchers made invaluable contributions to the knowledge production processes and became the ‘eye’ through which I saw the ‘field’ and data gathered. This offered a decolonial opportunity where local researchers as hidden figures in fieldwork migrated to the methodological front stage. Informed by the local turn in peacebuilding and the associated ethical responsibility to localise knowledge production in conflict-affected environments, this article frames remote fieldwork conducted during COVID-19 as an epistemic opening to revisit two recurring moral, ethical questions on knowledge production in Africa: who and what approaches are best suited for studying the continent. In revisiting these questions, the article employs critical decolonial theory (CDT) or perspective to expand/nuance an ongoing discussion about a methodological turn in IR/peace and conflict studies brought by the pandemic. It is argued that the sustained interest in the localisation of knowledge production post-pandemic should afford us the critical tools to be attentive to all forms of power relations beyond the Global North versus South framing of research power relationships. I demonstrate that using Africa-based sources should invite critical lens because there are power dynamics in who gets to speak.