Description
Reports by transnational NGOs inform efforts to address conflict and build peace, providing detailed information on conflicts as they unfold. This information politics is not simply a matter of collecting information and conveying it to policy-makers: it requires navigation of misinformation and obfuscation by conflict parties, and is impacted by increasing restrictions on global civil society. This paper asks what this means for these NGOs’ reporting. It draws on theory from ‘ignorance studies’ to conceptualize how non-knowledge is generated. Based on qualitative content analysis of public reports and expert interviews, it examines reporting on an episode of violent and nonviolent protest in Nepal’s southern Tarai-Madhes plains in 2015-16. The paper first identifies patterns of distortion and omission in these reports, then conceptually maps factors that result in non-knowledge. These are an outcome of incentives to simplify and dramatize for policy makers, and of self-censorship by NGOs as they navigate topics host governments define as sensitive. At the same time, information is also left out for ethical reasons and in order not to alienate actors these NGOs seek to engage in conflict resolution. This highlights the dilemmas at the core of an information politics of peace and conflict.
Keywords: Non-governmental organizations, peacebuilding, ignorance studies, Nepal
