A Gender Institute research seminar led by and Anouk S. Rigterink and Mareike Schomerus
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Wednesday 19 November 2014
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5.00-6.30pm
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NAB.2.04, New Academic Building, LSE
This seminar explains some basics of interdisciplinary research design and gives an example of how quantitative and qualitative methods can be meaningfully integrated. It demonstrates this using a study in Western Equatoria, South Sudan, on the role of information in the formation of authority. Specifically, this case study investigates the impact of radio messages aimed at fighters of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on support for a local militia (the Arrow Boys). The seminar will contain little technical detail, but instead focus on the intuition behind the two ‘holy grails’: causal inference for quantitative research and understanding of motivations and behaviour for qualitative research. Using the relationship between qualitative data and quantitative data, the case study highlights how the combination of the two methods allows the qualitative research to be elevated towards describing a broader phenomenon and the quantitative work can draw out meaningful casual relationships rather than meaningless correlations.
Dr Anouk Rigterink recently finished a PhD at LSE. She is now a Research Officer at the same university, doing research on conflict economics. Her research interests include the relationship between natural resources and violent political conflict, worldwide trends in conflict, and media in conflict-affected situations. Specifically, she is working on setting up a database crowd-sourcing information on violent and peace 'events' in Syria and executing the second round of a household survey in Western Equatoria, South Sudan.
Mareike Schomerus, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, works on the resolution of violent conflict, small arms, civilian-military relations, the violence of democratisation processes, and the impact of living in militarised situations on personal lives. Among her most recent publications are the edited volume “The Borderlands of South Sudan: Authority and Identity in Contemporary and Historical Perspective” (Palgrave Macmillan), “They forget what they came for: Uganda’s army in Sudan” (Journal of East African Studies) and “Improvising border security: 'A Situation of Security Pluralism' along South Sudan’s Borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo” (Security Dialogue).