Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines the methodological and personal challenges faced during research on sexual violence as a weapon of war in the Ethiopian Civil Conflict (Tigray, 2020-2022). It explores the silences of both survivors and perpetrators, questioning how researchers navigate dangerous environments and ethical dilemmas.

Paper Abstract:

The following paper emerged in parallel to the research I carried out for my Master’s thesis: Revealing Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War: The Case of the Ethiopian Civil Conflict in Tigray 2020-2022. Through the fieldwork undertaken, there was a realization to which I came to while facing the multiple obstacles my work faced. The core of this examination of methodology came from the challenge posed by the unspoken crimes both from the perspective of the survivors – those dealing with the physical and psychological consequences inherent to being a victim of sexual violence; as well as from the point of view of the silence of the perpetrator – those who, in fear of being exposed and prosecuted for the crimes, deny any implication and set up a barrier between researchers, media and the places of the crime.

My paper seeks to unveil the deeply rooted impediment to anthropological research in place whenever one seeks to go into the field and research such topics. By bringing to light this obstacle I shall seek then to question how to research and attempt to answer it. For, when a researcher cannot speak or must calculate every step meticulously, fearing personal danger or political prosecution, for those involved in the research, the question then must also come of how anthropologists must pose themselves in dangerous fieldwork environments. An attitude which must then be translated into a method which grasps the silence as a hidden voice against its use as a weapon.