This seminar provides a critical introduction to how knowledge is produced in and about (post)conflict zones. It focuses on the intricacies of the production of statistical and qualitative data, on institutions engaged in conflict reporting and their policies (like Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group), on ethnographies of spaces of aid and peacebuilding, on the construction of expertise, on fieldwork industries and their share in coproducing data, on the politics of evidence, and on how knowledge about conflict in turn shapes conflict itself. How do think tanks, academics, and politicians gather evidence about conflicts that are often almost impossible to study directly? How is access to conflict knowledge mediated? How are “facts” established? And what role do institutions, political narratives, and networks play in the production of knowledge about postconflict situations? Why are some conflicts studied and receive attention, while others tend to be ignored or “forgotten”? This seminar provides an introduction to this comparatively novel topic in peace and conflict studies. close