Filtered realities: translating knowledge from conflict-affected borderlands to policy

Research in conflict-affected borderlands often relies on researchers marked as “local” for access, while their analytical authority is filtered as knowledge moves through the research-to-policy pipeline. This viewpoint reflects on what happens to field-based knowledge as it is translated into institutional output. Drawing on research in the Pakistan-Afghanistan and Ethiopia-Kenya borderlands, we show that knowledge is shaped not only by what researchers encounter, but by the conditions under which they encounter it: mediated access, gendered constraints, unequal power, translation, surveillance, and institutional demands for legibility. We further examine how the gendered body, especially that of women researchers marked as “local,” can be both a source of access and a site of risk, shaping what can be known while remaining largely erased from policy-facing outputs. The article argues that the processes of research are constitutive of knowledge, not incidental to it. Rather than offering solutions, this reflection invites researchers and policymakers to rethink assumptions about neutrality, evidence, and voice, especially when working in settings shaped by conflict, surveillance, and contested authority.