Description
I present reflections gathered from interviews with twelve international volunteers in Ukraine who previously fought as foreign fighters for the Kurdish YPG (People’s Defense Units) in Syria against the Islamic State. As a researcher who is also a former YPG volunteer, I reflect on navigating the blurry boundary between researcher and fellow community member when interviewing participants. My experience highlights some of the benefits of an insider perspective when researching hard to reach groups, such as the increased ease of finding participants, the ability to quickly gain trust through credibility to secure consent, establishing rapport throughout the interview and analysing the data with insider knowledge. I also reflect on some of the tensions which emerge from my positionality as a fellow returnee, including ethical issues, missing potential blindspots through the insider dynamic and personal conflict and entanglement which can arise in performing interviews with the community.
