Interviewing former politically violent militants: reflections on fieldwork, narrative, memory, and ethical dilemmas

Research on politically motivated violence is often scarce and superficial, which prevents the production of in-depth accounts of this phenomenon that could inform researchers as well as practitioners and policymakers. This chapter uses interviews withinterviews former politically violent militants as a privileged way into storied data collection and suggests a framework to analyse such data. It describes an approach to political violence underpinned by ontological self-reflexive minimal foundationalism and epistemological constructionism. It also introduces narrative inquiry as a way of understanding human experience and engaging with storied data, exploring aspects such as memory, truth and identity; and as an analytical approach which combines both thematic and dialogical narrative analysis. The ethical issues involved in collecting and analysing sensitive data are equally reflected upon, particularly in relation to the way stories can be used in the public domain and how this can affect research participants.