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Conflict Ethnography Goes Online: Chatnography of the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions

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The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork

Abstract

This chapter discusses how conflict ethnography—ethnography attuned to the challenges of researching armed conflict—went online in my study of Ukrainian volunteer battalions. This online turn was both unexpected and exciting. While I had never been particularly interested in online research, social media and instant messaging nevertheless appeared to offer unforeseen opportunities for remotely researching a scantly studied conflict. In this chapter, I describe three revelatory moments that marked the rise, fall and plateau of the resulting chatnography, or the interaction through instant messaging apps and social media. Ultimately, I advocate caution when it comes to the use of digital methods in the study of armed conflict: while chatnography may be unavoidable, it can only work as one dimension of a broader ethnographic effort.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In fact, the only research at that time appeared to have been by Puglisi (2015), Karagiannis (2016), and Malyarenko and Galbreath (2016).

  2. 2.

    Vice News, “Selfie Soldiers: Russia Checks into Ukraine,” June 16, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso; The soldier had been initially identified in Maksymilian Czuperski et al., “Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine” (Atlantic Council, May 2015), http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Hiding_in_Plain_Sight/HPS_English.pdf.

  3. 3.

    Walbert Castillo, “Air Force Intel Uses ISIS ‘moron’ Post to Track Fighters” (CNN, June 5, 2015), https://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/05/politics/air-force-isis-moron-twitter/index.html.

  4. 4.

    Katie Benner et al., “Saudis’ Image Makers: A Troll Army and a Twitter Insider” (New York Times, October 20, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/politics/saudi-image-campaign-twitter.html.

  5. 5.

    For these, see Sebastian van Baalen, “‘Google Wants to Know Your Location’: The Ethical Challenges of Fieldwork in the Digital Age,” Research Ethics 14, no. 4 (2018): 1–17.

  6. 6.

    “Disinformation Cases MH17” (EU vs Disinfo, May 18, 2020), https://euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?disinfo_keywords%5B%5D=77107&date=.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ilmari Käihkö

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  1. Ilmari Käihkö
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Correspondence to Ilmari Käihkö .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Roger Mac Ginty

  2. School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Roddy Brett

  3. Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Birte Vogel

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Käihkö, I. (2021). Conflict Ethnography Goes Online: Chatnography of the Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions. In: Mac Ginty, R., Brett, R., Vogel, B. (eds) The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46433-2_14

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