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Summary information

Study title

From Russia with War: Interview Transcripts, 2022

Creator

Aliyev, H, University of Glasgow

Study number / PID

857364 (UKDA)

10.5255/UKDA-SN-857364 (DOI)

Data access

Open

Series

Not available

Abstract

'From Russia with War' is a collaborative research project that draws on years of pilot studies on violent mobilisation of non-state armed groups by research team members from the University of Glasgow, University of Ottawa, and Charles University Prague. This interdisciplinary research project combines the research team members’ joint experience of conducting high-risk ethnographic fieldwork amongst former and active members of armed groups in order to provide an in-depth explanation as to why individuals mobilise to become foreign fighters in the context of the former Soviet Union. (2023-02-13). Foreign fighters are individuals who choose to participate in armed conflicts occurring outside their countries of residence. Over the last decade, the post-Soviet region has served as a key supplier of foreign fighters for armed conflicts in the Middle East and across the former Soviet Union. The former Soviet Union, which includes Russian Federation, the Caucasus and Central Asian regions, supplied more foreign fighters to the Middle East than any other region of the world, including the Middle East itself. Although there has been little research done on foreign fighters in the context of the former Soviet Union, existing scholarly works echo mass media statements and the reports by international organisations in that post-Soviet foreign fighters are viewed as primarily driven by religious and political motivations. Most of these claims are based on the analysis of secondary sources and random interviews with conflict witnesses. No comprehensive fieldwork-based projects were ever conducted to understand what effect do sociocultural traditions, perceived repressions and opportunities have on foreign fighter mobilisation in the former Soviet Union. Years of preliminary exploratory research and a number of smaller pilot projects have led the research team to believe that post-Soviet foreign fighters mobilise not necessarily due to religious fervour or political...
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Topics

Politics

Keywords

BELARUSWARUKRAINERUSSIA2024

Methodology

Data collection period

01/02/2022 - 01/07/2022

Country

United Kingdom, Poland, Belarus, Slovakia

Time dimension

Not available

Analysis unit

Individual

Universe

Not available

Sampling procedure

Not available

Kind of data

Text

Data collection mode

This project employed two interdisciplinary methods of scientific enquiry. First, an ethno-historical method (Gerring 2001; Wedeen 2010; Parkinson 2013) based on in-depth ethnographic interviews. As per ethno-historical method, interview participants were asked to retell their experiences as stories or narratives, developing the narrative in historical order, sometimes referring to events which occurred decades ago. Face-to-face unstructured interviews were conducted in order to determine the informants’ reasons for becoming a foreign fighter, and to record the foreign fighters’ individual stories of mobilisation. Although this ethnographic approach is unorthodox in political studies, it is critical in research with hard-to-access categories of informants because it enables researchers to collect sensitive data through “story-telling” narratives (Ball-Rokeach et al. 2001; Smith 2009). Second, the “meta-data” collection method was used in order to record “the informants’ spoken and unspoken thoughts and feelings which they do not always articulate in their stories, but which emerge in other ways” (Fujii 2010: 231). The “meta-data” method involves the analysis of the respondents’ emotions, behaviour, facial expressions and gestures (Zhao 1991). The informants’ emotional attachment (or the lack thereof), and psychological response will be crucial to analyse individual attitudes and perceptions towards the discussion topic. The use of ethno-historical method in combination with “meta-data” collection is an innovative approach in research on foreign fighters, which has not been previously applied. Due to their emphasis on detailed qualitative inquiry and close personalised engagement with informants, both of these methods are best fitted to explore sociocultural, perceptual, and opportunities-centred research objectives. A snowballing method was used to recruit informants relying on referrals from fellow combatants, battalion commanders, members of communities, Diasporas, etc.

Funding information

Grant number

ES/V003453/1

Access

Publisher

UK Data Service

Publication year

2024

Terms of data access

The Data Collection is available from an external repository. Access is available via Related Resources.

Related publications

Not available