Mind the Gap: Conflict Narratives and Violent Control in Civil War (Pilot Phase)
Grants to Support Faculty Fellows' Research
The project develops methodological and theoretical tools to examine the construction of narratives around violence, using the gaps between information about ISIS / Islamist terrorism and on-the-ground events to understand how violent players leverage strategic narratives as a tool of war. The project builds on local networks in DR Congo and Iraq and continued fieldwork in both places, and includes community feedback component in terms of training and support for local researchers in these areas. This grant focuses on a pilot phase of the project to workshop methodological tools to gathering higher- credibility information from community sources across both regions, as well as to develop conceptual and methodological tools to evaluate and measure the gap between narrative and reality.
