ABSTRACT

By using the case study of ethno-religious profiling in the North Caucasus, this chapter seeks to discuss how political ethnography rooted in participant observation could contribute to the study of (in)security practices in conflict zones. In order to do so, I will first explain how the Paris School provides valuable thinking tools but also has important limitations in the study of conflict zones. I will describe my thirteen months of fieldwork in Russia, which included six months in Kabardino-Balkaria, Chechnya, and Dagestan, with the aim of translating how political ethnography could be used to study (in)security practices. Finally, I will explain how political ethnography permits us to rethink our research question and concepts by utilizing an inductive and bottom-up process.