constructs.” In other words, the knowledge of the social sciences is to be
based on in-depth and contextual understandings of participants’ life
worlds.Geertz (1973)also cautioned fellow anthropologists to avoid pro-
viding “thin,” rather than “thick,” descriptions of social life, which, for
lack of contextual understanding, can easily either exoticize or caricaturize
what for participants are ordinary activities (see alsoWeber, 1977). Indeed,
a disregard of the local context constitutes poor research (Brydon-Miller &
Greenwood, 2006; Brydon-Miller et al., 2003). In line with such classic
sociological theories and methods, Collaborative Action Research makes
participants’ contextual and locally sensitive knowledge one of its primary
foci. The assumption is that by building on local knowledge, we may better
understand the complexity and diversity of communities and institutions,
which will ultimately make not only for better social science, but also for
better-tailored interventions for the benefit of local stakeholders.
Arguably, such collaborative research practices are particularly useful in
conflict zones, in which hegemonic constructions ofwhofearswhomand
what, have become part of regional politics. If researchers’ movements and
research contents became determined by the dominant politics of fear, the
social sciences may not only become complicit in reaffirming social and eth-
nic stereotypes and pre-conceptions about “dangerous others” and “dan-
gerous spaces,” but they then also may fail to represent and understand
social groups that have historically been marginalized, powerless, and had
limited access to public discourse. It is therefore crucial for researchers to
resist and challenge dominant ecologies of fear by working with community
members and local stakeholders to provide a “history from below”
(McIntyre, 2010; Pyrch, 2007 ). Academic researchers may hereby not only
gain trusted guides so as to comfortably navigate through the maze of for-
eign spaces and communities, but local stakeholders are also more likely to
trust that the research undertaken will represent their concerns and voices.
By facilitating its implementation, locals often feel more confident in the
research project’s intent and purpose, which is all the more critical when
doing research in conflict areas.Lundy and McGovern (2006)found that in
their study of the post-conflict transition in Northern Ireland:
distrust could be circumvented because local people were conducting the
research...[its] grassroots nature...was seen as crucial in order to gain trust, enable
access, and establish an empathetic relationship with interviewees. (Lundy &
McGovern,2006, p. 57)I similarly found that my collaboration with local Palestinian stakeholders
and their support of the research project was “critical for gaining access to
Knowledge-Making and its Politics in Conflict Regions 31