Making sense of violence in civil war: challenging academic narratives through political ethnography

Abstract

This article seeks to assess the role of political ethnography in the study of civil war, and more particularly research which focuses on the micro-dynamics of violence. By focusing on the representations put forward by econometric and structural research about civil war, this article underlines the importance of fieldwork research and political ethnography in deepening and broadening our understanding of violence in civil war. By using the author's personal immersion experience in the conflict zone of the North Caucasus, this article highlights how structural variables, such as political grievances and marginalization, depict an incomplete image of participation in rebellion by focusing on the onset of violence and not on its sustaining factors. This article argues that in order to complete a micro-dynamic turn in the study of violence, one has to theorize the commonalities of life trajectories amongst individuals who decide to rebel against their marginalization by focusing on the role of nonphysical violence in civil wars.