Doctoral Dissertation Research: Post-Conflict Social Impacts of Technological Failure

The New School, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

New School University doctoral student Vasiliki Touhouliotis, supervised by Dr. Ann Stoler, will undertake research on the post-conflict effects of weapon technologies. Particular technologies may challenge the classic opposition of "wartime" and "peacetime." This research is important because, by tracking the people, objects, practices, and discourses around the weapons technologies and how they affect post-conflict life, her findings will improve our understanding of what the cessation of conflict means in practice and will inform policies to help societies adjust. The researcher will carry out twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork throughout South Lebanon where hundreds of thousands of unexploded cluster bombs dropped during the 2006 War remain a source of material danger. The researcher will employ a combination of appropriate social science methods. She will collect observational data from de-miners, residents in affected communities, people at victim rehabilitation centers, and participants in mine-risk education programs. She will conduct semi-structured interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, including affected individuals, farmers and other residents, local officials, and aid workers. She also will do content analysis of media materials. These data will be used to address the following overarching questions: Do the unexploded cluster bombs prolong the time of war? What forms does this prolongation take? How does the temporal persistence of war affect the meaning and practices of conflict and post-conflict civil society? By advancing understanding of daily life amongst unexploded bombs, this research will make an original contribution to social scientific theory of war and violence that does not rely on the opposition between war and peace. Findings will help humanitarian organizations and policy makers assess and understand the effects of violent conflict, and plan for and implement strategies for peace. Supporting this research also contributes to the education of a social scientist.