Introduction

Peace research aims to reduce violence by understanding its root causes and developing strategies for local and global justice (Galtung, 1969; Wallensteen, 2001). In practice, this normative agenda is connected to an affective economy where empathy, loosely understood as fellow feeling, is an important element (Pedwell, 2012a; see also Ahmed, 2004). Drawing on my PhD research with women's non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Armenia and Azerbaijan, this chapter argues that critical attention to the ambiguities of empathy in and beyond the fieldwork context can yield important insights into positionality, power relations and knowledge production. This can potentially foster affective self-transformation (Bartky, 1996, cited in Pedwell, 2012b, p 164), and prompt us to think more deeply about transnational feminist solidarity (Hemmings, 2012).

Empathy is understood here as ‘an active process of emotion and imagination that can play a role in catalysing thought and action’ (Gray, 2011, p 226). As such, it refers to both an automatic, embodied perception of what another person is feeling, and a distinct cognitive effort to see a particular event or set of circumstances from the other's perspective. Although empathy can be a valuable research tool, it carries ethical and emotional risks that are of particular concern in peace and conflict settings. The relational nature of empathy necessitates critical reflection on the positions and politics of the researcher. To illustrate this, I focus predominantly on 12 months of fieldwork that I conducted in Azerbaijan and Armenia between September 2012 and October 2014. A reflexive narrative on this experience discusses the dangers of appropriation, exploitation and exclusion of others’ experiences (Spelman, 1997; Ackerly and True, 2008), as well as the impact of role confusion and burnout (Bloor et al, 2007).

The chapter begins with an overview of the research project, emphasising the unpredictable influence that empathetic relationships had on the research process. I argue that friendships formed in the field can help to expand methodological boundaries while bringing questions about researcher privilege and positionality to the fore. This is followed by a discussion of the different ways that empathy can be invoked during ethnographic fieldwork. It highlights the impact of emotional identification and perspective-taking on peace research when violence and insecurity are woven into the fabric of everyday life.