Conflict Field ResearchA community dedicated to exchanging ideas and experiences about field research and ethics in conflict, post-conflict, authoritarian, and other difficult fieldwork settings, including contexts of systemic and symbolic violence.
Ethical Responsibilities
- Cyril Kenneth Adonis, 2008, Ethical Dilemmas in Conducting Research with Ex-combatants in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (Nova Southeastern University). This paper analyses the ways in which the wants and needs of ex-combatants’ are not met by research, thus posing ethical challenges, and when those researched reveal possibly dangerous information, ethical questions of anonymity come up.
- Susanna Campbell, 2008, Literature Review- Ethics of Research in Conflict and Post-Conflict Zones, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva. This paper outlines the main ethical principles and dilemmas of research in conflict and post-conflict zones.
- Christof P. Kurz, 2008,Eyewitness to Conflict and Peace: Key Informants and Causal Accounts of War and Peacebuilding, Tufts University (International Rescue Committee). This paper argues that interviews are particularly useful in studying the causal mechanisms of conflict and peacebuilding, while providing insight on how to select respondents and conduct subsequent interviews in conflict and post-conflict environments, as well as the challenges, practical and ethical, field interviewers may encounter.
- Justin Pearce, 2008, The Victor Makes History: The challenges of oral research in post-war Angola, University of Oxford. This paper identifies some methodological and ethical concerns related to obtaining testimonies in a post-conflict environment and the insecurities that accompany it.
- Susan M. Thomson, 2009, Developing Ethical Guidelines for Researchers working in Post-Conflict Environments: Research Report, University of Ottawa (Colgate University).
This paper identifies concerns for the safety and security of researcher and researched; obtaining informed consent; and dissemination of research findings, and other ethical challenges.