METHODOLOGY

The research was designed to explore women’s experiences that were often inadequately taken into account in the state-centric security policy frameworks that informed inquiry into “violent extremism” and thereby unpack the meaning and definitions attached to “violent extremism”. The research was planned to involve fieldwork in three locations in each of the three countries: India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. The understanding of the term “violent extremism” was different in each of the contexts since the histories and the politics that impacted each location were quite different. Therefore, the approach to the category “violent extremism” as well as the research focus was country-specific and shaped by social and political histories. India was removed from the empirical research and was only included in secondary source research hence the project focused mainly on Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Several collective analysis initiatives were undertaken between the teams, both online and in person, to allow for sharing of experiences and analyses across country teams. 

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At the Country level, the teams from Sri Lanka and Indonesia undertook to conduct local-level qualitative research in three study sites per country featuring life stories of women affected by fundamentalist-extremist ideology. The selected sites for Indonesia were; East Bandung in the province of West Java; Poso in the province of Central Sulawesi; and, Pontianak in the province of Central Kalimantan. The three research sites in Sri Lanka were Negombo in the Western Province, Batticaloa in the Eastern Province and Kurunegala in the North-Western Province. A gender and intersectional analysis were built into the research design.

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Aside from the interviews in the three localities, the Indonesian team also initiated another form of documentation of women’s life stories. The team invited seven women to write about their experience joining and then leaving Islamist organizations. These autobiographical writings were called ‘unlearning diaries’ which provided valuable insight into the inner workings of Islamist recruitment systems into schools and communities as well as into the inner thought process of the young women as they navigated through their Islamist involvements.

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The research area indicated that given the context, the research process would be extremely sensitive. The prevalence of tensions impacted the ability to do research and raised many ethical issues for the researchers. There was a clear need to build trust to have honest conversations. Therefore, both Indonesia and Sri Lanka research teams identified local activists to be research assistants and worked through networks established by long-standing women’s organisations. The existing mistrust and the hindrances to open and free conversations across communities experienced by the researchers in both countries posed important insights to both country teams working in divided communities.

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The Young Researcher’s Workshop was conducted for the researchers from both Indonesia and Sri Lanka, to be able to share their experiences of doing research in divided communities. The workshop was conducted online over two sessions across multiple languages of Bahasa, Tamil, Sinhala and English. Researchers shared their challenges in “othering” those whom they interviewed, in other words, going into interviews not considering their own positionality. Others shared the challenges of being seen as part of the oppressor community where researchers were left with guilt as the violence and oppression happened in the name of one’s own religion/ethnicity. They spoke of the importance of recognizing one’s own positionality in the field. Instead of a report of the workshop, a young woman visual documenter listened in for the two days and produced a visual record of the most important facts shared, insights gained, and questions raised.