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- Convenor:
-
Joanna Octavia
(University of Warwick)
Send message to Convenor
- Formats:
- Experimental Mixed
- Stream:
- Global methodologies
- Sessions:
- Thursday 1 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In the wake of COVID-19, researchers are shifting to physically-distanced research formats. This panel considers the feasibility and challenges, as well as best practices, of remote research methods within the field of international development.
Long Abstract:
This panel aims to explore remote research methods in the field of international development, and reflect how researchers have adopted them as a way to conduct fieldwork. We especially welcome contributions that touch upon one or more of the following:
• How mobility disruptions, physical distancing and lockdown measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic had pivoted your plans and reshaped your research design;
• Creative participatory research and data collection methods, such as remote video and photo diaries, online surveys and digital ethnography;
• Considerations for shifting from in-person to remote research methods, especially the ongoing impact on the participants involved in the research;
• The ethical challenges of remote research methods, in particular when working with vulnerable communities in developing and less developed countries;
• The practical challenges of remote research methods, including the legitimacy and reliability of data collected.
As an experimental panel, accepted papers are required to submit a pre-recorded video presentation, which will be played in the allocated timing during the conference. A live Q&A and discussion with all of the panel speakers and conference participants will follow after all of the presentations have been played.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 1 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper not only explores the use of netnography to study Bangladeshi women’s social media activism in a pre-COVID context but analysing the challenges and ethical dilemmas in the research; it also offers ways to mitigate them and states the importance of netnographic research during the pandemic
Paper long abstract:
This paper sheds light on the utilisation of a netnography approach in a PhD research fieldwork in 2018 that aimed to examine Bangladeshi women commuters’ Facebook-based interventions to reduce sexual harassment on public transport in Dhaka city. ‘Netnography’ is a form of digital ethnography that uses ethnographic methods to study online communities and enables the researcher to redefine traditional ethnographic concepts such as field site, participant observation and field notes and adapt them differently for the online space (James & Busher 2009; Kozinets 2010; Bridges 2016; Stewart 2017). This paper explains how the study in discussion although initially aimed to use netnographic Facebook Messenger conversation as a primary research tool to gather data failed in its objective due to firstly, the participants’ lack of access to adequate internet facilities and secondly, their reluctance to participate in fear of their anonymity being compromised on Facebook. Hence, a netnography approach was used in this research as an entry point in which a netnographic observation technique was used to shortlist two Facebook initiatives and select research participants, and a netnographic Facebook Messenger conversation approach was employed to build the primary rapport with participants to invite them to face-to-face interviews. Finally, while reflecting on the ways in which the above-mentioned research process mitigates the ethical dilemmas associated with participant selection, informed consent, and data access in the pre-COVID context, this paper also depicts the possibilities of netnography as a key data collection tool to be used in research during the COVID-19
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the importance of relational networks for successfully ‘going remote’ across two different qualitative research projects in Uganda. It discusses how the researchers leverage existing relations in order to continue research with diverse groups of participants.
Paper long abstract:
Social relations underpin qualitative research, yet COVID-19 disrupted existing research relations while also making establishing new ones more difficult. This paper draws on two separate qualitative research projects in Uganda that use remote methodologies to either continue or initiate data collection. Both projects revolve around human geography/international development but differ in scale. The first is a PhD project focused on the lived experiences and emotional impacts of forced displacement on aged refugees. The second project seeks to combat trafficking in persons and is a multi-partner project involving academic, non-governmental, and private sector partners from the United Kingdom and Uganda.
In the first project, the researcher had established relationships with a group of refugees while interviewing them personally before COVID-19 restricted face-to-face research. The researcher then successfully built on these existing relationships and interviewed the same refugees a second time remotely whereas interviewing ‘new’ respondents proved difficult. In the second project, existing connections from partner organisations in Uganda provided the UK-based researcher with a network and credibility that made it possible to conduct remote interviews. Without this relational network, access to respondents would have been hard, if not impossible, to achieve.
This paper therefore argues that for remote methodologies to be successful, it is essential to establish and utilise relational networks. It demonstrates that remote methodologies can be used across different contexts and research scales, but that different approaches to establishing these networks are essential.
Paper short abstract:
Elite interviews are conducted to obtain information or context that only specific people – typically those near the top of a stratification system – can provide. In developing countries such as Indonesia, cultural norms mandate that such interviews are conducted in-person to gain trust and ensure confidentiality (Octavia, 2021). Drawing from fieldwork experience in Jakarta, this paper argues that tapping into networks and formulating a digital identity may aid researchers in accessing elites and successfully conducting remote interviews with them during COVID-19.
Paper long abstract:
COVID-19 restrictions have forced researchers around the world to change their research methods in order to be able to produce data from a distance. But what happens when cultural norms mandate them to conduct in-person interviews with elite stakeholders?
This paper looks at the researcher’s experience in conducting elite interviews in Jakarta, Indonesia, during COVID-19, when the public health emergency restricted the ability to conduct face-to-face interviews with elites, such as government and union officials. Elite interviewees are typically at the top of a stratification system, and selected for their role in the subject matter. Like the concept of guanxi in China (see Gold et al., 2002), Bapakism in Indonesia defines the fundamental cultural dynamics in social networks. Derived from the word ‘Bapak’, which means father in Indonesian and is an honourific used to address an older male or someone with a higher status, Bapakism as a norm emphasises paternalistic values, and permeates many aspects of Indonesian social and political life, including interactions with elite stakeholders.
Even before the pandemic, elites are typically difficult to access due to their position and proximity to power (Liu, 2018). Since some research topics may be sensitive, meeting in-person allows researchers to assure elites that the interview will be treated anonymously and confidentially (Harvey, 2011). Drawing from the researcher’s fieldwork experience, this paper argues that despite these obvious challenges, remote interviews could be made possible with the aid of personal and professional networks, as well as by the formulation of a detailed digital identity.