(De)constructing research ‘expertise’ in transnational participatory warfare

Focusing on a case study of offline and online violence in Somalia/Somaliland and the disputed city of Las Anod, this article presents an (auto)netnographic analysis of transnational digital hostility and participatory warfare. It argues that academic ‘expertise’ is an under-theorised but significant aspect of complex conflict dynamics as they play out on social media. The affordances of digital platforms can compel researchers to engage in new ways with conflicts, further blurring long-contested boundaries between scholarship and activism. In the article’s reflexive case study, debates about ‘expertise’ have a racialised aspect tied to historical inequalities in knowledge production in/on the Horn of Africa. These legacies intersect with newer dynamics of social media mis/disinformation, adding another layer of contextual complexity to online and offline participation in armed conflict that can both challenge and reinforce power imbalances in the politics of expertise.