Abstract
The transdisciplinary collaborative project “Propaganda and management of information in the Ukraine-Russia conflict” (2016–2018) that the authors were a part of, focused on Ukrainian actors and used ethnography, and particularly interview, as its primary methodology. We have been interviewing journalists, media experts, historians, etc. Many of the informants highlighted their roles as activists and change agents in the post-2014 society. Coming from different research fields (history and journalism and media studies), we have been reflecting upon the tension between our striving at academic neutrality and the different disciplinary approaches, as well as unavoidable emotional involvement in the subject we scrutinize. The chapter is based on dialogic autoethnography wherein we reflect on the challenges the researchers face when conducting ethnographic research on activists and dealing with such sensitive issues as information warfare and armed conflict. This becomes especially problematic when scholars come from the countries involved in the conflict, Ukraine and Russia. It continues the discussion about the role of emotions in ethnographic research. We aim to contribute to several discussions: field of conflict ethnography, work in multidisciplinary research environment, and particularities of conducting interviews with activists.
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Notes
- 1.
We are aware of the discussion on the use of the word “informant” (e.g. Morse, 1991). We chose to use the concept “informant” over “respondent” as it connotes qualitative research in contrast to quantitative analysis.
- 2.
Self- and autoethnography can be seen as interchangeable terms. In this chapter, we will predominantly use the term “autoethnography.”
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Acknowledgements
The project was funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (2016–2018, project leader—Per Ståhlberg). Contact: Södertörn University, Alfred Nobels allé 7, 141 89 Huddinge, Sweden.
We would like to thank our colleagues with whom we were working on that project—Per Ståhlberg and Göran Bolin—for their support, trust, and encouragement. We are grateful to the editors of this collection for their insightful comments that helped to develop this chapter. Vlad Strukov, thank you for your kind encouragement to experiment with the format of an interview with each other! The Network for female, trans* and non-binary researchers and doctoral students at Södertörn University has provided us with an opportunity to finalize this text in a beautiful and inspiring atmosphere: thank you for this! And last but not least thanks to all of the informants who worked with us!
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Yurchuk, Y., Voronova, L. (2020). Challenges of Ongoing Conflict Research: Dialogic Autoethnography in Studies of Post-2014 Ukraine. In: Jeppesen, S., Sartoretto, P. (eds) Media Activist Research Ethics. Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research - A Palgrave and IAMCR Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44389-4_12
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