Building from the general weakness of local engagement within conflict zones, Voices from the Void (Voices) is a research collective focused on promoting a wider understanding of the candid realities confronting marginalized communities swept up in violence. Our aim, at its core, is to utilize local insights to help redefine best practices towards pursuing more sustainable peace.
To do this Voices engages with (and is comprised by) a wide cross section of academics, combatants, community leaders, and often just ordinary stakeholders to help ensure that the challenges facing local communities — and potential solutions — are better appreciated. This includes pursuing dialogue with neglected and elusive perspectives throughout conflicted contexts, which often takes us far off the beaten path.
Once in more marginalized communities our default approach is to engage a broad cross-section of local stakeholders through interviews, focus group discussions, survey research, and improvised community events. By meeting people on their own terms — whether formal, familiar, or social — we find that understanding flows most freely when we begin where people already are.
As such local perspectives are gradually appreciated, these insights are then considered more thoughtfully by our growing team of advisors prior to wider dissemination with partnering stakeholders. By serving as a bridge between informal (and often neglected) insights and more established institutions, as well as increasingly producing our own outreach, we strive to amplify the voices we’ve encountered and advocate for more inclusive approaches moving forward.
Voices, as emphasized, aspires to comprise the same wide diversity of perspectives we seek out amidst conflict. And while our team is knowledgeable, we appreciate that our experiences and perspectives are only a small part of more fully understanding the complexity of conflict, and warmly welcome wider involvement.
