Short Abstract

This panel discusses practical, ethical and theoretical considerations to conducting ethnographic and qualitative research in difficult research environments in Africa, including politically unstable, authoritarian and/or conflict environments.

Long Abstract

This panel will discuss practical, ethical and theoretical considerations to conducting ethnographic and qualitative research in difficult research environments in Africa. This can include research conducted in politically unstable, authoritarian and/or conflict environments. While difficult research environments can deter research, scholars have long argued that these environments provide valuable insights into contemporary challenges and can be successfully navigated (Nordstrom & Robben, 1995). Rather than avoid research in difficult settings, social scientists from disciplines like anthropology, sociology, development studies and others, have demonstrated that through proper planning and context specific strategies in navigating fieldwork, successful and insightful research can take place. However, difficult research environments do merit particular ethical and practical considerations, from protection of data captured to physical safety of participants and researchers. Such contexts can also pose challenges of researcher ‘embeddedness,’ where research might unintentionally support violent or authoritarian actors. Topics of safety, access, protection and other practical considerations in the field are also inextricably linked to positionality, including intersectional modifiers like gender, age, race and insider/outsider status, which can facilitate or inhibit research in difficult settings. Moreover, scholars working in these settings must navigate, at times, difficult institutional ethics and bureaucracies that can greatly affect the scope of research. Papers will consider how to navigate these practical and theoretical considerations in the field, including discussion of university ethics, data capturing, fieldwork logistics and fieldsite access. In seeking to explore these and other considerations for researching in difficult research environments, panellists will discuss experiences of researching under constraint.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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