Abstract
This article explores the potentialities of memory workshops for studying civilian agency in violent settings. Drawing from field research with campesino communities in Colombia, it provides a description of the workshops’ implementation process, including creative tools such as memory web creation, collective drawing of timelines and exploration of emotional biographies. Through these activities, campesinos reflected on the embodied and discursive relations within their communities, evoking experiences and practices of wartime. The article highlights the limitations of conventional research methods and proposes memory workshops as a methodological alternative that foregrounds the co-production of data, facilitating the emergence of localised knowledge and self-authorship.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Civil Wars |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 13 Nov 2024 |
Funding
I am deeply grateful to the campesino communities in Colombia for their invaluable trust and generosity. I thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editors of Civil Wars for their constructive suggestions. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2022 Empirical Peace and Conflict Research Workshop of the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies (AFK) in Aarhus, Denmark. Fieldwork in Colombia was conducted between 2016 and 2019 as part of a larger doctoral project, financially supported by the Colombian Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, and the University of Amsterdam.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Colombian Department of Science, Technology and Innovation | |
| Universiteit van Amsterdam |
Keywords
- Memory Workshops
- Civilian Agency
- Creative Methods
- Civil War