Suchergebnisse

Purpose
It is assumed that fieldwork experiential learning on constraints of survey and ethnography research orientations in investigating armed conflict in Africa can contribute to the body of knowledge and help practitioners as well as other researchers working in difficult situations, such as war zones. More importantly, this paper aims to understand significant problems in Southern Africa, further methodological debates and produce new frontiers of knowledge in Southern African research studies. This paper will help other researchers who will be planning to conduct research in ongoing war-torn zones to be flexible with mixed research methodologies and data collection techniques that can ensure not only reliability and validity of the data but also, and more importantly, greater generalizability of this study.


Design/methodology/approach
This research in Cabo was initially guided by survey and ethnographic approaches. After facing constraints in their use in investigating the complexity of new wars, the author developed and shifted to interpretivism methodology as an alternative. It is essential that researchers be sensitive to the tensions between survey and ethnography methodologies and how they can be a mismatch to the research purpose.


Findings
The fieldwork experiences, using standardised survey and ethnography research orientations in Gabo, show that there is no generally appropriate blueprint of how to conduct research in violent conflicts. The valorised survey and ethnographic research strategies were not closely matched to facilitate understanding of the complexity of hybrid armed actors, indiscriminate and targeted violence which combined to militate against data generation. In the face of these problems, the author developed a new methodology, interpretivism, which embedded the descriptive, explanatory and predictive approaches. In tumultuous contexts, the standardised methodologies prioritize data generation more than critical thinking.


Originality/value
It is essential to study the nature of African armed conflicts by combining creativity and flexibility in the selection of research strategies. The constraints on peace research in war-torn situations in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, have laid out the weaknesses of peacetime research methodologies, including survey research and ethnographic approaches. Now is the time to reassess fieldwork-based research particularly in violent settings.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to draw lessons from the important contributions of appreciative inquiry leadership in shaping the future people aspects to police leadership. A practice model of the Zimbabwe Republic Police Women Network (ZRP WN) illuminates how the future of policing in a context of mutually reinforcing confluence of increasing rate of crime, state decay, and economic decline is contingent upon shifting from the current preoccupation of "what works" to "what is important."


Design/methodology/approach
Guided by the organising principles of the 4-D cycle involving discovery, dream, design and destiny/delivery, the appreciative inquiry leadership model illuminates a sustainable future-oriented policing.


Findings
The case study of ZRP WN reveals the resilience and adaptability of female police officers to policing challenges as they constantly designed people-oriented policing operations and activities.


Practical implications
Of importance is the exponential influence of communis and phronesis in rethinking and redesigning police roles in decades to come.


Originality/value
The ZRP WN, through its shared vision of values, gives us a leaf on how to respond to the ever-changing values of justice and police leadership altering contexts.