The study of political violence, conflict and contestation has gained increased attention follow- ing the end of the Cold War and the rising number of civil wars and intractable conflicts. This development has forced development donors, UN agencies, and other international organizations to adapt their policies, covering the ambition of enhancing stability, democracy, and development, this with very mixed results. A rich tradition of ethnographically driven research on violent conflict and its effects on society has developed over time, and research using thick description of conflict and conflict-affected areas has opened new and innovative perspectives to the field. Yet, despite the empirical depth of these approaches, much of the existing scholarship is made up of single case-studies, leading to a dearth of serious comparative research and theory building and to a very fragmented field of peace and conflict studies. Furthermore, in most of the existing debates and literature, critical voices and perspectives from the Global South remain absent.

We invite scholars and practitioners to submit ethnographically driven proposals of papers that reflect about:

• How to enhance comparative and theory-building research in conflict studies and the study of intervention.
• How to develop and apply innovative methods, technologies and tools for data collection and analysis, techniques for monitoring and evaluation, and participatory methods and citizen science. Here, we are particularly interested in reflections on the use of new empirical methods and its rela- tionship with micro-data, such as RCTs, geospatial analysis using high-resolution satellite imagery, machine learning methods, big data applications, and the large-scale digiti- zation of archival resources, as well as their ethical, political and scientific implications in the field of conflict research.
• How to integrate critical voices, decolonial, postcolonial, fem- inist, and indigenous perspectives in conflict studies. Here, we also want to invite reflections on how to study the ways in which marginalized populations have been disproportionately impacted by conflict and international interventions; the roles of Indigenous Peoples and other minority groups, women, and youth in peacebuilding; and the rights and needs of non-human animals, ecosystem, and Earth.

We welcome creative and innovative papers reflecting on these topics and other future trends in conflict studies. We also invite theory-building and reflective papers that thake into account empirical, micro-level analysis of violent conflict, socio-economic development, and discuss the use of technologies in conflict studies. We particularly encourage contributions from a broad spectrum of disciplines and stakeholders (scholars, practitioners, activists and artists). We also encourage contributions from collaborative, co-creative, participatory action research initiated by local stakeholders including indigenous, rural and and displaced communities. These can include written and graphic contributions, e.g., poetry, spoken word, artistic expression, and musical lyrics, etc.

Paper abstract submissions should be submitted by 4 April, 2022 (23:59 CET) to crg@ugent.be. Proposals should include (in a single PDF file) a 300-word abstract that demonstrate its relevance to the conference’s overall theme and a short author bio, including affiliation and contact details. Authors will be informed about the final paper selection by April 19, 2022.