As You Set out for Ithaka

Practical, Epistemological, Ethical, and Existential Questions about Socio-Legal Empirical Research in Conflict

Bibliographic Data

ID5837573
AuthorsSarah Nouwen (0000-0002-1212-935X, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, corresponding author), Sarah M H Nouwen
Year2014
Volume27
Issue1
Pages227-260
Publication date2014-01-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLeiden Journal of International Law (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0922-1565 • E-ISSN: 1478-9698
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s092215651300071x
OpenAlexW3125887220
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited38

This is the story behind another story. Inspired by the anthropological practice of reflexivity, it traces some practical, epistemological, ethical, and existential questions behind a book based on empirical socio-legal research into international criminal law in situations of conflict. The challenges involved in such research are at times impossible to overcome. Indeed, the challenges may be such that the researcher will never be able to answer her original question fully and confidently. However, challenges can be findings in themselves. They may reveal insights into the role of law in a society, the limitations of vocabularies, the overexposure of international criminal law, and inequalities in global knowledge production. Rather than merely obstructing research into a topical issue, challenges may shift the researcher's attention to other, more fundamental, questions. Nonetheless, understanding challenges as findings does not resolve the existential problem of the researcher's possible complicity in maintaining the very challenges that she analyses and perhaps ambitiously tries to overcome

Complicity · Empirical research · Reflexivity · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Global Security and Public Health · International Law and Human Rights

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