Papers

Emotional Challenges

• An Ansoms, 2010, The Story Behind the Findings: Ethical and Emotional Challenges of Field Research in Conflict-Prone Environments, University of Antwerp (Catholic University of Louvain). This paper considers the difficulties of the researcher-subject interaction, the risks and physical difficulties, and the positioning and emotional response of the researcher.

• Peter Locke, 2008, Ethical Dilemmas of Fieldwork in Post-War Sarajevo Civil Society, Princeton University (Northwestern University).  This paper considers how foreign researchers are implicated in the neglect of the researched person’s needs, and a kind of foreign voyeurism into their suffering.

• Shelly Whitman, 2011, The Challenges of Doing Research on Child Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dalhousie University. This paper analyzes difficulties in researching in the DRC, the practical political barriers and the lack of record keeping, as well as the emotional experience of meeting child soldiers and addresses the question of emotion in research.

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.

Ethics in Conflict and Post-Conflict Settings

• Bandita Sijapati, 2010, Contested Moralities, Disputed Ethics: the Dilemmas of Conducting Research in Post Conflict Environments, University of Nepal. This paper considers the gaps in knowledge for research methods in post-conflict situations, and the inadequacy of conventional data collection and dissemination in these environments.

• Simon Robins, 2008, A Participatory Approach to Ethnographic Research with Victims of Gross Human Rights Violations: Studying Families of the Disappeared in Post-conflict Nepal, University of York. This paper reflects on the ethical research methods used to involve the participants in the study. The people interviewed were engaged in shaping the research, the methods, and the product, and talked in groups or whatever made them most confortable to allow their voices to be heard as they wished and avoid re-traumatization.

• Mareike Schomerus, 2008, Chasing the Kony Story, London School of Economics. In her role as a journalist, Schomerus documents her 2006 interview with Joseph Kony and the challenges she faced when news colleagues manipulated the content of her story about Kony. 

Gaining Access

• Victor Asiedu, 2010, ‘Door knocking’ – A Useful Entry Tool in a Post-conflict Environment: A Critical Appraisal based on Empirical Research in Sierra Leone, University of York. This paper questions the effectiveness of current oral testimony collection methods in post-war environments because of the lack of trust from participants in such environments. It assesses the “door knocking” method to gain community trust.

• Christine Pagen, 2008, Implications of Associations Between INGOs and Academic Researchers- Reflections from Southern Sudan, Columbia University. This paper explores the ethical implications of academic researchers associating with INGOs in post-conflict environments.

• Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, 2008, Accessing Returnee Refugee Women in Post Conflict Liberia: Practical, Ethical, and Gender Considerations in Research, University of Ibadan (Babcock University). This paper identifies and analyzes certain practical problems, ethical dilemmas and gender factors that affect access to research participants, in this case returnee refugee women in Liberia, and the possible implications for research outcomes.

Research Design

• Kristine Höglund, 2008, Sensitive Topics, Sensitive Environments- Challenges for Comparative Research in Conflict-Ridden Societies, Uppsala University.  This paper addresses comparative research design in conflict and post-conflict environments. It identifies both methodological and ethical challenges and argues that the insecure research setting and the sensitivity of the research topic will influence all parts of the research process.

Researcher Positionality

• Yolande Bouka, 2015, Researching Violence in Africa as a Black Woman: Notes from Rwanda, American University/Institute for Security Studies. This working paper addresses some of the ethical and methodological concerns I confronted as a non-white woman conducting research in post-conflict Rwanda. In this paper, I address the wanting diversity of perspectives with regards to reflexivity, positionality, and risk in the field and expose some implications of conducting research in politically charged environments for non-white, “brown,” and/or non-western researchers. I also introduce perspectives that may influence the ways in which they gather and analyze their data when researching political violence. The paper looks at how I navigated my field experience as a Western female researcher of the African diaspora. I argue that underrepresented researchers and the study of violence can benefit from broadening the conversation about researchers’ identities and how they relate to the field, their research subjects, and their data.

Researched/Researcher Relationships

• Eva Gerharz, 2009, Ambivalent Positioning. Reflections on Ethnographic Research in Sri Lanka during the Ceasefire of 2002, Bielefeld University. This paper considers the positioning of the researcher, particularly in a post/pre war context. The dynamics for a researcher between them and other researchers, locals, combatants, and the question of neutrality, are all considered.

• Lee Ann Fujii, 2008, Ethical challenges of micro-level fieldwork, George Washington University (University of Toronto). This paper discusses how micro-level research in Rwanda and the personal bonds formed through close contact blurs the lines of researchers and participants through direct engagement and how those researched should have a say in how they are represented through the researcher’s writing.