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Research area:

Violence and Conflict

How do violence and conflict impact individuals, communities and institutions? Fafo has long experience in researching conflicts and social unrest around the globe. Our research focuses on how people and institutions are affected by, respond to and recover from violence and conflict.

We aim at uncovering the underlying drivers of conflict, who the main actors are on the local, national, regional and global levels, and the conditions under which conflicts are created and sustained.

Our research focuses on the continuum of violence (Bourgois 2004), that is the interlinkage of domestic, structural and political violence. Our research therefore also explores the impact of violence and conflict on health, social relations and political participation.

Research topics vary from the integration of traumatized refugees, human trafficking, torture, as well as an indebt study of civil wars, social unrest and terrorism around the world.


Ongoing projects

Activism and its moral and cultural foundations: alternative citizenship and women's roles in Kurdistan and the diaspora
ALCITfem er et tverrfaglig forskningsprogram som er forankret i litteraturvitenskap, kulturantropologi, kjønnsstudier og sosiologi. Programmet undersøker hvordan kurderne, som mangler statlige strukturer og statlige institusjoner, har agert utenfor slike strukturer ved å bygge egne kulturelle og sosiale institusjoner i statene de er borgere av.
The future of resettlement: vulnerability revisited

Dette prosjektet utforsker endringer i politikken for gjenbosetting av kvoteflyktninger, spesielt knyttet til begrepet «sårbarhet», og hvordan disse endringene i politikken former prosessene der flyktninger velges ut for gjenbosetting,

Fafo publications

Articles and book chapters

Completed projects

Torturesurvivors in asylum

Prosjektets overordnede målsetning er å utrede UDIs forpliktelser og anbefalt praksis overfor torturutusatte i asylprosedyren.

European management of migration and refugees

I dette prosjektet, MARE, ser vi på Europas rolle i håndteringen av flyktninger i fire områder, Amman i Jordan, Bequaa-dalen i Libanon, Agades i Niger og Nakivale i Uganda.

Seeing DDR from Below

Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programming has become an integral element of international programming in countries transitioning from conflict. Despite attracting a high level of attention and resources, DDR's impact on ex-combatants is poorly understood.

When Protection Means Exploitation

In the early 2000s, United Nations peacekeeping operations experienced a series of scandals stemming from acts of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) committed by peacekeepers against the local population. The UN responded by promulgating strategies to combat SEA by military and civilian peacekeeping personnel.