Papers by Miriam Tekath
Peacebuilding, 2024
Analyses of universities in peace and conflict studies predominantly draw on micro-, meso- or mac... more Analyses of universities in peace and conflict studies predominantly draw on micro-, meso- or macro-level lenses which portray universities as conflict-prone or peace-conducive. While these perspectives only allow for a limited understanding of higher education as a conflictual field, I propose that the methodology of situational analysis is better suited to understand the complex dynamics of peace and conflict in universities. Building on ethnographic research in three Senegalese universities, the situational analysis of student housing reveals how conflicts over political power, access to resources and competition in a precarious lifeworld emerge situationally. Simultaneously, the conflictual field of higher education is characterised by practices of cooperation and solidary relations. By allowing for complexity and contradictions, the situational analysis thus reveals important potentials for peace in the conflictual field of higher education.
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 2024
In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, projects involving field research were largely restricte... more In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, projects involving field research were largely restricted or modified due to the increasing complexity of their methodological and ethical realization. Despite the slowly increasing debates on the (im)possibility of field research during that time, the relational dynamics of field research activities during the pandemic have not yet been discussed in detail. I address this gap by using CLARKE's (2005) situational analysis to reflect on a seven-month field research stay in Senegal during the Covid-19 pandemic. By conceiving of the pandemic and myself as the researcher to be an integral part of the research situation, I analyze how the research situation was characterized by relational dynamics which were shaped by different lived realities of the pandemic (politics). Building on this, I show how the encounter of different pandemic-related experiences was accompanied by irritations, uncertainties and joking practices, but also politicized as conflictual dynamics in the research situation. These insights are crucial for understanding the relational dynamics of conducting field research during a global pandemic that was experienced locally. Furthermore, I provide insights into the analytical potential of using situational analysis for a reflexive engagement with field research.
European Journal of International Security , 2023
While studies on the role of knowledge and expertise have seen a resurgence of interest in Intern... more While studies on the role of knowledge and expertise have seen a resurgence of interest in International Relations and in literature on peacebuilding and security governance, little is known how knowledge enters the governance routines after the initial establishment of peacebuilding operations. Taking the mandate decision-making process of MINUSMA and EUTM operations in Mali in the German parliament as case for our explorative study, we ask how knowledge has entered the parliamentary process and how various epistemic practices and epistemic agency shape this peacebuilding governance since 2013. Informed by an object-centred knowledge framework, we argue that the practices and types of agency involved mostly ‘lock-in’ the governing of robust peacebuilding in Mali in much broader foreign- and security policies routines. Epistemic practices are not primarily concerned with new impulses or critical analysis, but with rendering Mali governable as interventionary object. The epistemic authority of the government is dominant and we do not find much evidence that hegemonic knowledge is challenged. Intervening agents do extract certain knowledge via transnational channels from Mali, however, broader knowledge debates or the involvement of Malian agents are missing.
Soziologiemagazin, 2023
Politische Polarisierung prägt gleichermaßen politische Systeme wie alltägliche Lebenswelten. Die... more Politische Polarisierung prägt gleichermaßen politische Systeme wie alltägliche Lebenswelten. Die lebensweltliche Bedeutung polarisierter sozialer Differenzen wird in den stark institutionalistisch geführten Debatten um Konfliktbearbeitung in polarisierten Gesellschaften jedoch wenig beachtet. Dabei können gerade lebensweltliche Perspektiven wichtige konflikttheoretische Erkenntnisse für politisch polarisierte Gesellschaften generieren. Diese Forschungsnotiz geht daher der Frage nach, welche Konflikt- und Kooperationsdynamiken von sozialer Polarisierung geprägte Begegnungskontexte aufweisen. Als hochgradig diverse und insbesondere territorial polarisierte Kontexte bieten senegalesische Hochschulen dafür ein ideales Forschungsfeld. Aufbauend auf mehrfachen Forschungsaufenthalten im Senegal argumentiere ich, dass die Polarisierung territorialer Differenzen zwar situativ konfliktverschärfend wirkt, senegalesische Studierende jedoch auch auf ein breites Handlungsspektrum rekurrieren, um der Polarisierung zu begegnen. Friedlichen Kooperations- und polarisierten Konfliktdynamiken kommt somit eine gewisse Gleichzeitigkeit zu; die Betonung der relationalen Verbundenheit als Studierende in einem geteilten prekären Kontext hilft jedoch, zwischen den politisch polarisierten Differenzpositionen zu vermitteln.
Peacebuilding, 2022
While research within peace and conflict studies frequently discusses youth, and simultaneously c... more While research within peace and conflict studies frequently discusses youth, and simultaneously criticises the terminology surrounding it, it predominantly considers it as an age-based category. Based on such criticisms, we develop a conceptualisation of youth as a social category, arguing that such generational configurations allow insights into conflict dynamics hidden by a purely age-based conceptualisation. We contrast definitions of age-based youth rooted in epistemic regimes with a sociological understanding of youth generations in an attempt to decouple our definition from such power structures. We suggest three insights from this: That youth generations can work within existing power structures and institutions to address their concerns, rather than being intrinsically antagonistic towards them; that concepts and definitions of youth are rooted in epistemic regimes and thus conceal their highly diverse and situative experiences; and that third, by forming youth generations as social groups, common experiences generate meaning for generation-based conflict dynamics.
Handbuch Friedenspsychologie, 2022
Um die diversen Ausdrucksformen von und die damit einhergehende vielfältige wissenschaftliche Bes... more Um die diversen Ausdrucksformen von und die damit einhergehende vielfältige wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung mit Gewalt zu verstehen, unterscheidet dieser Beitrag zwischen fünf zentralen Diskussions- und Analysedimensionen: Neben einer Abhandlung der Formen und Spezifika direkter, physischer Gewalt werden die Konzepte der strukturellen, kulturellen und symbolischen Gewalt diskutiert. Entgegen dieser Unterscheidung zwischen beobachtbaren Gewalthandlungen und gewaltvollen Makro-Strukturen zielen weitere Ansätze darauf ab, Gewaltphänomene gerade durch das Zusammenbringen von Mikro- und Makro-Ebenen zu verstehen. Dabei lassen sich instrumentalistische Ansätze, welche Gewalt durch rationale Logiken erklären, von situationistischen Ansätzen, welche die Entstehung von Gewaltdynamiken aus der emotionalen Einordnung sozialer Situationen heraus betrachten, unterscheiden. Ansätze, die Gewalt hingegen aus der Dynamik eskalierender Kommunikationsprozesse heraus erklären, stellen schließlich die fünfte Analysedimension dar. Eskalierende Kommunikationsdynamiken können systemtheoretisch unterschiedlichen Organisationslogiken inhärent sein oder aus der Sequenzialität verschiedener Ereignisse entstehen. Über diese unterschiedlichen Auffassungen und Ansätze hinaus wird der Forschungsgegenstand vor dem Hintergrund gesellschaftskritischer Auseinandersetzungen mit Gewaltphänomenen eingeordnet: So werden neben der Einbettung von Gewalt in normative Vorstellungen von Zivilisation und Moderne auch Verfahren der Bearbeitung von Gewaltkonflikten sowie Konzeptionen der Gewaltfreiheit aufgegriffen.
Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien, 2021
Language usage is always a political act in Quebec. This observation is hardly surprising, given ... more Language usage is always a political act in Quebec. This observation is hardly surprising, given that the framing of a threatened French language is omnipresent in the Quebecer public discourse and that various political measures attempt to protect the language. This process can be considered as a securitization which creates language protection as a political and social order that strongly shapes political ideas as well as the daily life in Quebec. This long-term securitizing discourse allows us to analyze the effects of a securitization on two levels: On one side, the way the securitization as political order gives meaning to everyday practices, and on the other side, the generational differences which lead to multiple interpretations of the threat scenario. The collective patterns of orientation identified during three intergenerational focus group discussions show that everyday interactions in Quebec are remarkably oriented towards the securitization. However, despite the similarity of everyday practices of securitization, the group discussions revealed a high degree of intergenerational conflict. Paradoxically, this intergenerational conflict is not due to generationally different everyday practices of securitization, but to a mutual perception based on different frameworks of orientation that lead to a generational difference in the interpretation of the threat scenario.
Teaching Documents by Miriam Tekath
Lehrgut - Ein Blog für Lehrende der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, 2020
Book Reviews by Miriam Tekath
KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 2020
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Papers by Miriam Tekath
Teaching Documents by Miriam Tekath
Book Reviews by Miriam Tekath