Description
Studies of civil war have increasingly referred to relationality as crucial to understanding a range of conflict dynamics, from identity formation to mobilization to organizational politics of armed groups to rebel governance. How relations between different actors involved in civil wars evolve over time has also been shown to shape overarching trajectories of civil wars. Yet, the concept of relationality remains underdeveloped in civil war studies as it is used to convey a variety of meanings. Whereas feminist and interpretivist scholars of war, for example, situate relationality in the realm of socially embedded individuals and focus on the importance of quotidian relations of family and friendship, scholars of contentious politics trace interactions between aggregate actors, such as the state and social movements. This roundtable brings together established and early career scholars situated in different ontological, epistemological, and methodological traditions to outline distinct approaches to relationality in civil war and discuss specific relations associated with these approaches and their effects on broader dynamics and processes of civil war. The aim of the roundtable is to chart a research agenda that leverages the multi-layered nature of relationality in civil war and points ways forward in future studies that centre complex relations between multiple actors involved in civil wars.
