Children's Narratives of Conflict from Swat Valley, Pakistan

FAIN: FT-58917-11

Lubna N. Chaudhry
SUNY Research Foundation, Binghamton (Binghamton, NY 13902-4400)

My research examines children's constructions of violence in the context of the Taliban-related armed conflict in Swat, Pakistan. I will analyze narratives from girls and boys, aged 9-17, collected in 2009-2010. I am especially concerned with the diversity of children's experiences, and I focus on how gender, working with other factors, impacts children's perspectives. The study contributes to the literature on children in conflict zones by putting forth children as social actors who actively negotiate the words and spaces around them in order to make meaning and take action. It is also significant in its attempt to combine humanistic modes of narrative analysis, primarily drawn from postcolonial feminist quarters and oral historical analyses of collective violence, with ethnographic research. The data collection is already underway. I seek support for the data analysis period and the writing of a refereed journal article and a book proposal in the summer of 2011.