The ethics of researching war

Book excerpt: Developed through a series of encounters with a Bosnian Serb soldier, The ethics of researching war is a meditation on the possibilities and limitations of responding to the extreme violence of the Bosnian war. The book explores the ethics of confronting the war criminal and investigates the possibility of responsibility not just to victims of war and war crimes, but also to the perpetrators of violence. As such, The ethics of researching war is a consideration of the human encounter, exploring the political and scholarly strategies through which the 'human' is often dismissed as 'inhuman'. The book exposes the complexity of the categories of good and evil.