Welcome

Fieldwork Notes

Dec 24, 2023

Welcome!

This is my personal blog where I share occasional reflections for research, fieldwork, and conferences. These short articles are fun to write and I hope you enjoy reading them but please reach out if you have any questions or have also visited

You can also find my writing over on Medium or on my Blog where I occasionally write briefs about emerging research into disinformation, extremism, conflict, and behaviour psychology. I promise to keep these as brief as possible and only when something fascinates me. Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to reach out

- -

https://medium.com/@broderickmcdonald

Broderick (Brody) McDonald

My research examines armed conflict, terrorism, and political violence as it unfolds both online and offline. With a background in peace and conflict studies conducting on-the-ground fieldwork in the Middle East, my research is driven by the recognition that what occurs online can have significant impact on offline outcomes, and vice versa. Only examining the online or offline dimensions of political violence and contentious politics can leave significant gaps in our understanding of how conflict onset, processes, and outcomes. The existing divisions between online and offline investigations of terrorism and violent and extremism is striking, but it limits the explanatory power we can bring to bear on this complex phenomenon. Monitoring jihadist groups or far-right extremists online may be a first step for many researchers, but collecting fine-grained data in the real world is essential to understand the fuller picture and validate hypotheses. While online research is more accessible for new researchers to get started with, we often need to understand on-the-ground conflict dynamics to develop comprehensive explanations of how terrorist groups and violent extremists organize, recruit, and fight.

My work seeks to bridge this gap by collecting fine-grained data both from detailed fieldwork (including subnational surveys, psychosocial measures, and elite/non-elite interviews with combatants, officials, and civilians) alongside primary source documents including online extremist propaganda, government records, and local media reporting to reconstruct complex conflict processes from multiple sources. Using process tracing and leveraging theoretical models from political science, sociology, and development studies to validate these theories we can gain new insights into the micro-dynamics of conflict and extremism.

Links:

Muckrack Author Page Broderick McDonald https://muckrack.com/broderickmcdonald

https://muckrack.com/broderick-mcdonald/articles

www.youtube.com/@Broderick.McDonald

Al Jazeera Author (Broderick McDonald) https://www.aljazeera.com/author/broderick-mcdonald

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/2/active-clubs-a-new-far-right-threat-to-democratic-elections

Tech Against Terrorism Podcast (Broderick McDonald) https://podcast.techagainstterrorism.org/1684819/14864219-active-clubs-fitness-fraternity-and-fascism

Rothermere American Institute (Broderick McDonald) https://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/people/brody-mcdonald

https://about.me/broderickmcdonald

https://www.facebook.com/broderickmcdonald2/

https://www.tiktok.com/@broderickmcdonald_

https://gnet-research.org/author/brody-mcdonald/