Ethnography in Peace and Conflict Research Emily E. Welty When explaining my ethnographic PhD research, I am often tempted to describe it in terms of the numbers of cups of tea I drank during my year...

Ethnography in Peace and Conflict Research Emily E. Welty When explaining my ethnographic PhD research, I am often tempted to describe it in terms of the numbers of cups of tea I drank during my year of research in Uganda and Kenya. Greg Mortenson popularly characterized development in terms of cups of tea in his book Three Cups of Tea (2006) exploring education in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While I do not share Mortensen’s approach or many of his conclusions, I do feel that my “cup of tea count” meaningfully captures the ethnographic nature of my research. Much of my participant observation involved cups of tea (and coffee and juice) with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) volunteers and partners—sitting in meetings, in offices and in their homes speaking informally about what they were doing, thinking and feeling. The approximately 276 cups of tea I drank represent the methodology I used to understand the work of an international faith-based peacebuilding and development organization operating in East Africa. Ethnography is a methodology particularly well-suited for the growing field of peace and conflict studies. While traditionally seen as the domain of anthropologists, ethnography is increasingly being used by many disciplines including religious studies, political science, sociology, and psychology. As an interdisciplinary field, peace and conflict studies must explore and utilize a wide range of methodological practices. I argue that ethnography is particularly suited for peace and conflict studies because of its careful attention to power dynamics, focus on the local/grassroots level and tendency to seek understandi