A Different Kind of War Story: Centering Love and Care in Peace and Conflict Studies

我们对受武装冲突影响的环境进行的研究表明，爱和关怀的关系和做法塑造了人们对暴力的理解和生存经历。在武装冲突中和冲突后，人们继续建立亲密关系，坠入爱河，并相互提供不同形式的关怀。然而，关于武装冲突的叙述主要集中在伤害和苦难上。这个项目的问题是：爱和关怀的关系和做法如何改变学术界和政策对冲突与和平的理解？爱和关怀是积极的做法，而不是消极的情绪。通过在乌干达和哥伦比亚的深入、定性的实地考察，我们将探索受冲突影响的个人和社区如何体验、理解和实践爱与关怀。我们还将调查这些做法如何塑造人们对暴力的理解，以及如何在暴力之后重塑世界。该项目以关于关怀伦理、关怀人类学和世界政治中的情感的学术文献为基础，将分析爱和关怀如何在武装冲突和建设和平的背景下照亮政治和政治的不同含义。认识到爱和关怀也塑造了研究人员与他们的身份和主题的关系，我们将进一步研究爱和关怀的实践如何支撑和维持暴力学者的工作。我们并不否认正在进行的关于伤害和不公正的研究的重要性；相反，我们提出的理由是，在考虑暴力的同时，也必须考虑到关爱和关怀的做法。从理论上和分析上讲，对爱和关怀的关注可以改变我们对和平的看法，即和平是什么样子和感觉的，和平在哪里发生，谁参与了和平的制造，暴力何时结束，和平何时开始，暴力如何继续并改变人们的生活。这一贡献反映了对暴力与和平研究的女权主义方法，它呼吁以超越与政治暴力与建设和平有关的正式、官方行为者和行动的方式调查这些主题。在伦理和方法上，这个项目回应了新出现的呼吁暴力学者超越以损害为中心的研究，转而支持也有意义地接触维持生命的力量和关系。

Our research in contexts affected by armed conflict suggests that relations and practices of love and care shape how people make sense of and survive experiences of violence. In the midst and wake of armed conflict, people continue to forge intimate relationships, fall in love, and extend different forms of care to one another. Yet, narratives about armed conflict predominantly focus on harms and suffering. This project asks: How can relations and practices of love and care change scholarly and policy understandings of conflict and peace?Love and care are active practices, not passive emotions. Through in-depth, qualitative fieldwork in Uganda and Colombia, we will explore how conflict-affected individuals and communities experience, understand, and practice love and care. We will also investigate how these practices shape how people make sense of violence and remake worlds in its wake. Building on scholarly literature on the ethics of care, the anthropology of care, and emotions in world politics, the project will analyze how love and care illuminate different meanings of politics and the political in the context of armed conflict and peacebuilding. Recognizing that love and care also shape researchers’ relationships to their identity and subject matter, we will further examine how practices of love and care underpin and sustain the work of scholars of violence. We do not deny the importance of ongoing studies of harm and injustice; rather, we make the case for the significance of considering practices of love and care alongside violence. Theoretically and analytically, a focus on love and care can shift our sense of what peace looks and feels like, where it takes place, who is involved in the making of it, when violence ends and peace begins, and how violence lives on and transforms people’s lives. This contribution reflects a feminist approach to violence and peace research, which calls for investigating these subjects in ways that go beyond the formal, official actors and actions associated with political violence and peacebuilding. Ethically and methodologically, this project responds to emerging calls for scholars of violence to move beyond damage-centered research in favor of also meaningfully engaging with the forces and relations that sustain life.