Methodology of the excluded: conspiracy as discourse in the eastern DRC

Abstract

This article seeks to theorise the importance of locally produced narratives of conflict and peacekeeping which can be used to diversify our understanding of conflict. These narratives are often dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories’ by international peacebuilders and disregarded as ‘unverifiable’ by researchers. But the people who articulate these narratives often have extensive lived experience of conflict. Consequently, they demonstrate sophisticated informal theorising, resistance to malevolent power, and experience-led knowledge in their narratives. Engaging more seriously with these narratives can, therefore, make important contributions to our understandings. Drawing on narratives and stories collected over more than a decade of interview-based and ethnographic field research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this article shows how conspiracy narratives can be analytically useful in questioning the powerful and enduring logics of international intervention and reveal important yet oft-ignored aspects of peacebuilding failure that need to be addressed if peace is to succeed.