In this presentation, Visualising Peace student Otilia Meden discusses some of the scholarship she has been reading about care and self-care in peace-building – both for locals impacted by conflict and for peace practitioners and researchers. She highlights important links between self-care and communal compassion, and also engages with the idea of ‘radicalising resilience’ in relation to women survivors of war. Below the video, you can find a summary of the publications she discusses. These are also available in our Visualising Peace Library.
Kimberly Theidon. 2014. “How was your trip? Self-care for researchers working and writing on violence”. Drugs, Security and Democracy Program Working Papers on Research Security 2: 1-20.
In this article, Kimberly Theidon shines a light on the immense emotional weight that comes with carrying out research on violence and armed conflicts. Theidon draws on her own research in Latin America, sharing how personal stories of victimhood challenge her mental well-being. As such, this article asserts that self-care and compassion are fundamentals to consider for researchers who work and write on violence. In relation to peace, Theidon calls for all of us to take our internal state of mind seriously within all academic work because it is a part of ‘staying safe and sane’. While referring to violence research, Theidon brings widely applicable guidelines and tools to listening to our inner voices to find more comfort within ourselves and the work we do. This library entails various sources that address peace and conflict; therefore, this article draws attention to the importance of mental well-being in both building peace and building a sustainable life for oneself.
Philipp Schulz, Anne-Kathrin Kreft, Heleen Touquet, and Sarah Martin. 2022. “Self-care for gender-based violence researchers – Beyond bubble baths and chocolate pralines.” Qualitative Research: 1-20
In this article, the authors argue that self-care and compassion are crucial, yet overlooked aspects of Gender-Based-Violence (GBV) research practice. First and foremost, they call for institutional change to enhance structures around mental well-being for field researchers. The overarching point is that GBV studies take an emotional toll on the conductors. In their words, the ‘costs of caring’ are often failed to be taken seriously, leaving manifold consequences for the individual researchers. Moreover, they assert that self-care is not supposed to be an individualized burden. Instead, it is a communal practice wherein researchers benefit from specifically shared lived experiences of conducting GBV research. Drawing on their respective fieldwork, they advocate that it is essential to consider the manifold sides of self-care and the barriers to self-care practices. They echo feminist thinking when taking the racial, gendered, and socioeconomic circumstances into consideration as potential barriers to practicing self-care as a GBV researcher and practician. I include this article in the library to turn our attention to the interplay between peace(building), self-care, and communal compassion. Rephrased, the connection between internal and external peace.
Marie E. Berry. 2022. “Radicalising resilience: mothering, solidarity, and interdependence among women survivors of war.” Journal of International Relations and Development: 1-21.
This article offers a reformulation of the concept of resilience. Marie E. Berry brings into question the neo-liberal and individualized idea(l)s of resilience, especially in light of conflictual areas where survivors are almost admired for their inner resilience. In this discussion, Berry draws on the interviews that she has conducted with over 400 women from harmed areas such as Serbia/Bosnia, Rwanda, Nepal, Palestine, and Israel. In particular, she shines a light on the three cornerstones of resilience; mothering; solidarity; and interdependence. These three aspects are vital and show how care, compassion, and love coexist with and support individuals in the wake of violence. In sum, this article draws our attention to the resilience of women survivors of war, both as individuals and mutually supporting communities. On the path towards peace, recognizing the resilient practices of care and self-love are essential in providing a local approach to building peace.