Abstract

Scholars and research funding institutions have pursued North-South research partnerships as one possible redress for the divisions and inequalities that characterize research and knowledge production practices in the field of transitional justice. Policies and guidelines have been developed to shape the nature of these partnerships, to ensure mutual benefit, and to ensure a collaborative knowledge production process. However, critical reflections about the way these partnerships play out in practice are scant. In this chapter we will thus reflect on our team’s experiences in implementing what was planned as a collaborative North-South research project. We highlight questions of positionality, emotions and ethics in shaping and ‘doing’ partnerships. Drawing on a series of vignettes, extracted from a reflective conversation our project team had at the workshop that concluded our project, we make sense of these experiences within the larger debates on North-South relations in transitional justice scholarship and peacebuilding more generally.