CSS Research and Policy Seminar with Annette Idler

The Center for Strategic Studies hosted Annette Idler of Oxford University on November 24 to discuss her recent book, Borderland Battles: Violence, Crime, and Governance at the Edges of Colombia’s War, as part of the Research and Policy Seminar series. The seminar also included a presentation and discussion of her most recent research initiatives.

Idler has spent almost a decade in the borderlands of Colombia conducting fieldwork on the nexus among crime, conflict, and the illicit drug trade. The research projects employ a variety of qualitative methods, and the extensive evidence, gathered mostly from interviews in a very challenging field location, was cited by attendees as one of the most impressive contributions. In general, the crime-conflict nexus remains understudied because of a lack of good empirical evidence on activity that, by necessity, occurs in a clandestine manner.

Idler intends to extend this research by applying insights from Colombia to study other settings, such as Myanmar. The research will help elucidate understudied topics relating to crime, with impressive fieldwork and qualitative evidence.