What Can We/Do We Want to Know? Reflections from Researching SGBV in Military Settings

This article explores methodological challenges that arose in two perpetrator-centered research projects on sexual and gender-based violence in two different armed forces contexts: the British Army and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It examines how the interplay between research subjects', in this case perpetrators', performances and the researchers' own desires and investments as researchers shape the knowledge produced. Ultimately, the researchers seek to encourage continuing (self)critical discussions on how various discursive framings and ethico-political desires shape the stories they hear as well as those that they tell. [Authors]