Berit Bliesemann de Guevara

Knowledge production in/about conflict and intervention: finding ‘facts’, telling ‘truth’

ABSTRACT This article has a twofold aim. First, it discusses the contributions to the scholarly field of conflict knowledge and expertise in this special issue on Knowledge production in/about conflict and intervention: finding ‘facts’, telling ‘truth’. Second, it suggests an alternative reading of the issue’s contributions. Starting from the assumption that prevalent ways of knowing are always influenced by wider material and ideological structures at specific times, the article traces the influence of contemporary neoliberalism on general knowledge production structures in Western societies, and more specifically in Western academia, before re-reading the special issue’s contributions through this prism. The main argument is that neoliberalism leaves limited space for independent critical knowledge, thereby negatively affecting what can be known about conflict and intervention. The article concludes with some tasks for reflexive scholarship in neoliberal times.

On methodology and myths: exploring the International Crisis Group’s organisational culture

Exploring the historiography of the International Crisis Group (icg), this article looks critically at the narratives surrounding the organisation’s self-declared success. The focus is specifically on the so-called icg methodology, consisting of field-based research and analysis, practical policy recommendations and high-level advocacy. Combining a three-level approach to the analysis of organisational cultures with Yanow’s concept of organisational myths, the article argues that the icg methodology contains a number of organisational myths that are meant to mask tensions and contradictions in the organisation’s underpinning basic assumptions and values, which, if publicly discussed, could have the power to undermine its expert authority. The four myths looked at in detail are the ‘field facts myth’, the ‘myth of flexible pragmatism’, the ‘myth of uniqueness’ and the ‘neutrality/independence myth’.Exploring the historiography of the International Crisis Group (icg), this article looks critically at the narratives surrounding the organisation’s self-declared success. The focus is specifically on the so-called icg methodology, consisting of field-based research and analysis, practical policy recommendations and high-level advocacy. Combining a three-level approach to the analysis of organisational cultures with Yanow’s concept of organisational myths, the article argues that the icg methodology contains a number of organisational myths that are meant to mask tensions and contradictions in the organisation’s underpinning basic assumptions and values, which, if publicly discussed, could have the power to undermine its expert authority. The four myths looked at in detail are the ‘field facts myth’, the ‘myth of flexible pragmatism’, the ‘myth of uniqueness’ and the ‘neutrality/independence myth’.

Journeys to the limits of first-hand knowledge: politicians’ on-site visits in zones of conflict and intervention

ABSTRACTThis article explores the practice and political significance of politicians’ journeys to conflict zones. It focuses on the German example, looking at field trips to theatres of international intervention as a way of first-hand knowledge in policymaking. Paying tribute to Lisa Smirl and her work on humanitarian spaces, objects and imaginaries and on liminality in aid worker biographies, two connected arguments are developed. First, through the exploration of the routinized practices of politicians’ field trips the article shows how these journeys not only remain confined to the ‘auxiliary space’ of aid/intervention, but that it is furthermore a staged reality of this auxiliary space that most politicians experience on their journeys. The question is then asked, second, what politicians actually experience on their journeys and how their experiences relate to their policy knowledge about conflict and intervention. It is shown that political field trips enable sensory/affectual, liminoid and liminal...ABSTRACT This article explores the practice and political significance of politicians’ journeys to conflict zones. It focuses on the German example, looking at field trips to theatres of international intervention as a way of first-hand knowledge in policymaking. Paying tribute to Lisa Smirl and her work on humanitarian spaces, objects and imaginaries and on liminality in aid worker biographies, two connected arguments are developed. First, through the exploration of the routinized practices of politicians’ field trips the article shows how these journeys not only remain confined to the ‘auxiliary space’ of aid/intervention, but that it is furthermore a staged reality of this auxiliary space that most politicians experience on their journeys. The question is then asked, second, what politicians actually experience on their journeys and how their experiences relate to their policy knowledge about conflict and intervention. It is shown that political field trips enable sensory/affectual, liminoid and liminal experiences, which have functions such as authority accumulation, agenda setting, community building, and civilizing domestic politics, while at the same time reinforcing, in most cases, pre-existing conflict and intervention imaginaries.

Intervention Theatre: performance, authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of official travel activities by politicians to post-/conflict spaces in German foreign policymaking. Starting from the observation that official travel justifications stress the value of authentic insights and unfiltered information, while journeys in practice are meticulously planned and staged, it asks what kind of knowing is possible, how actors make sense of the staged nature of field trips, and how multiple performances create and/or undermine notions of authenticity and first-hand expertise. The article shows that official on-site visits are composed of multiple conscious performances by all actors involved, but that these performances do not undermine the notions of authenticity and expertise. On the contrary, knowledge authenticity—or truth claims on the basis of authentic insights—and related expert authority are produced through travel-as-performance. The emphasis policymakers put on on-site presence and (the performance of) localized knowledge contradicts intervention literature’s generalized finding of a prioritization of technocratic over localized knowledge. The article draws on politics and performance scholarship and authenticity theories in tourism studies to make sense of a wealth of empirical material on the claims, practice and functions of German MPs’ journeys to post-/conflict spaces as part of broader political struggles over policy knowledge.ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of official travel activities by politicians to post-/conflict spaces in German foreign policymaking. Starting from the observation that official travel justifications stress the value of authentic insights and unfiltered information, while journeys in practice are meticulously planned and staged, it asks what kind of knowing is possible, how actors make sense of the staged nature of field trips, and how multiple performances create and/or undermine notions of authenticity and first-hand expertise. The article shows that official on-site visits are composed of multiple conscious performances by all actors involved, but that these performances do not undermine the notions of authenticity and expertise. On the contrary, knowledge authenticity—or truth claims on the basis of authentic insights—and related expert authority are produced through travel-as-performance. The emphasis policymakers put on on-site presence and (the performance of) localized knowledge contradicts...

Myth in International Politics: Ideological Delusion and Necessary Fiction

Bliesemann de Guevara develops a conceptual framework for the study of myth in international politics. The chapter gives an overview of the different myth theories drawn upon in the book, with a focus on three dimensions: myths’ narrative and non-narrative forms; their sources in strategic calculation or unconscious social construction; and their effects, ranging from ideological delusion to necessary fiction. It then explores different categories of sociopolitical functions of myth—determining, enabling, naturalising, constituting—and discusses how the myth concepts pertaining to these categories can be employed to study international politics and what their respective promises and limits are. The chapter concludes on a reflexivist note about myths in the discipline of International Relations, calling for an extension of mythographical enquiry into the discipline itself.

Pictorial and spatial metaphor in the drawings of a culturally diverse group of women with fertility problems

Metaphor has been shown to be pervasive in the way people talk and write about a whole range of diseases, including infertility. Indeed, some of the most conventional of these metaphorical expressions have become so entrenched in particular discourse communities that they are used unconsciously and automatically, even by people who do not, in fact, agree with their underlying ideological implications. As the authors argue in this article, eliciting visual metaphors in the form of drawings may reveal the meaning-making processes of individuals in a way that more richly reflects their unique experiences, including those that challenge or disrupt dominant cultural models. Based on an analysis of drawings created by a group of women in Wales from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, the authors show the importance of taking into account both explicit pictorial metaphors and any metaphorical meanings suggested by spatial composition, as well as the specific socio-cultural context in which they were created.

Knowledge and Expertise in International Interventions : The Politics of Facts, Truth and Authenticity

Knowledge about violent conflict and international intervention is political. It involves power struggles over the objects of knowing (problematization/silencing), how they are known (epistemic pra ...

Introduction: Myth and Narrative in International Politics

Myths are part and parcel of contemporary international politics, and they are all around us. From the invocation of ‘the international community’ to talk of Afghanistan as a ‘graveyard of empires’ or home of ‘warlords’, and from ideas of ‘antiseptic battlefields’ in modern warfare to concepts of ‘coordination’, ‘participation’ and ‘effectiveness’ in the work of international organisations—international politics is replete with powerful narratives and commonly held beliefs that qualify as myths.