Ms Shadi Rouhshahbaz1
1University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Shadi Rouhshahbaz (she/her) is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne and an Associate Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute. Her work explores intergenerational feminist leadership and youth peacebuilding futures as well as gender and peace in Iran. Shadi is a Women PeaceMaker Fellow at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, and she also served as a Nuclear Disarmament Fellow at the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners Programme of School of International Futures. Formerly the editor of the Journal of Youth, Peace and Security, Shadi founded PeaceMentors in Iran and has collaborated with youth movements and UN agencies including UN Women, UNICEF, and UNIC.
Abstract:
There has been increasing recognition of the key role young people play in global politics, particularly in conflict and post-conflict contexts. However, this research has mainly been conducted following Western-centric methodologies and ethical considerations. There is growing evidence that demonstrates the limitations of these methodologies in capturing diverse local contexts and experiences, particularly in the Global South. This panel brings together researchers working with and for youth engaged in peace and security in Latin America and Southeast Asia. It discusses various fieldwork challenges and opportunities such as ethical dilemmas, access, logistics, “objectivity”, incentives, and how different researcher positionalities shape the ways of researching diverse youth in conflict, post conflict, and fragile contexts centering “situated knowledges”. Together, contributors show how researchers can rethink approaches to critically and reflectively engage with local youth to deepen our understanding and theorising of youth politics. Papers in the panel explore these questions in the context of youth-led peacebuilding on Instagram and TikTok in post-peace-accord Colombia, exiled anti-junta Myanmar youth Activists living in Thailand, young women leaders building everyday peace using social media in the Philippines, and youth inclusion in Southeast Asian regional peace and security.