Grants and residencies

Research

Everyday entanglements of violence and peace at the limit(s). Understanding the interrelation of discursive and visual expressions of peace/conflict

Application summary

This project addresses focuses on the ongoing situation in the Mexican city of Tijuana. The Mexico-U.S. border is the place where different expressions of violence and peace take place having an impact on all the identities involved in the area. The aim of this project is to study the entanglement between expressions of conflict and epistemic violence with expressions of everyday peace taking place at the border. Specifically, the objective is to analyze everyday expressions of conflict and peace embedded in discourses, identities and representations about the others. The everyday expressions are examined by collating three research tracks combining an ethnographic perspective with discursive and visual approaches. The research tracks complement and triangulate data (interviews, media reports & images), with different sources of information. Each track provides a specific angle and context to the everyday entanglements of violence and peace at the limit. The project has a conceptual frame based on the field of Peace and Conflict Research. The methods considered will be ethnographic participant observations, photo elicitation, open interviews, content analysis, and visual discursive analysis. The contribution of this project is to shed light and uncover the entanglement of violence and peace happening in the actual context of Tijuana and show to the ways expressions of peace can be permanently fostered.

The project had a first stage from February 2020 to August 2021 with me as main researcher, and a second stage from March to June 2022 with the inclusion of Valentina Cappelletti, Teija Hakala, and José Francisco Valenzuela as part of the research team and visual artist respectively.

In this final report, it is an honor for me to inform Kone Foundation that the main objectives of the project were fulfilled in terms of publications and sharing the findings of the research. Despite the global pandemic, the project’s research activities were accomplished. Furthermore, the academic outcomes of the project have the potential to have a positive impact in academic and policy making spheres for diminishing certain forms of social exclusion, epistemic and structural violence. The publications emerging from the project analyze everyday expressions of conflict and peace regarding the migrant persons at the Mexico-US border and the politics of exclusion that takes place at this area.

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