Abstract
This chapter focuses upon the value of a collaborative community research approach within peace research and in particular upon the work that the authors are undertaking with activists and community organizers from Indigenous communities in North America and in East Africa. Using original case studies that focus upon moving the rights of Indigenous peoples forward in each country, this chapter outlines a praxis that is akin to “action research” in anthropology, where the researcher not only documents and examines what is taking place but uses that knowledge to advocate on behalf of the community with the community’s goals in mind.
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- 1.
We recognize that the concept of community is complex and highly contested within the field of ethnography . In this case we adhere to the ideas put forward by Anthony Cohen who considered what it meant to be Saami in the Nuortabealli ssi’da as ‘to say almost everything of social significance about yourself, for it encompasses your kinship, your friendship, your domicile, your modes of life, love and death; it is the whole person…[P]eople assert community, whether in the form of ethnicity or locality, when they recognize in it the most adequate medium for the expression of their whole selves (Cohen 1985: 107).
- 2.
In solidarity with Indigenous academics and advocates, the authors choose to capitalize ‘Indigenous peoples’ as a way to show respect and underline their distinctness as a category of peoples with its own regime of rights, as set out by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples. This capitalization also helps differentiate from the use of ‘indigenous’ as a synonym of autochthonous, aboriginal, or other words that have connotations of nativism. There is no internationally accepted definition of an ‘Indigenous People’. One of the most cited definitions is from Jose R. Martinez Cobo, the former Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, who in his study on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations stated “Indigenous communities , peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity , as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.” To review this study, see UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7
- 3.
- 4.
In Kinyarwanda, the prefixes mu- and ba- are used to indicate singular and plural, respectively (Mutwa/Mututsi/Muhutu, singular; Twa/Batutsi/Buhutu, plural).
- 5.
In the case of Maine, the Penobscot Nation had their own Institutional Review Boards that recognized the potentially damaging nature of Western academic research.
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Collins, B., Watson, A. (2018). The Impetus for Peace Studies to Make a Collaborative Turn: Towards Community Collaborative Research. In: Millar, G. (eds) Ethnographic Peace Research. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65563-5_5
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