Detailed information about the course

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Title

Exploring Risks and Vulnerabilities: Gender and Power Relations in Field Research (co-organised with the gender program)

Dates

May 3-4

Organizer(s)

Prof. E. Hertz, UNINE W. Wiesigel, UNINE Larissa Araujo, PhD IHEID Marie de Lutz, PhD IHEID Camille Girault, PhD IHEID Meenakshi Nair, PhD IHEID Dalia Zein, PhD IHEID

Speakers

Fenneke Reysoo (IHEID), Jerika Heinze (FISST Initiative), Agnieszka Kroskowska (Helvetas) and Ellen Hertz (UniNE) 

Description

Exploring Risks and Vulnerabilities: Gender and Power Relations in Field Research The objective of this workshop is to bring forward a much needed conversation that is often lacking in academic institutional training: the topic of risks and vulnerabilities which a field researcher encounters. With the understanding that the type of risk which fieldwork entails is dependent on various factors (the geographical context, the type of research conducted, as well as the researcher's positionality) we intend to cover a broad range of challenges regarding matters of health, gender, and political risk. In 2009, Amy Pollard, then a graduate student at Cambridge University, drew attention to the difficulties and vulnerabilities researchers faced during fieldwork: from feeling afraid and uncomfortable to being harassed. These risks and vulnerabilities, as the works of Kloß (2016) and Johansson (2015) illustrate, are not located external to the practice of fieldwork, but very much within. More recently, Hanson and Richards (2019) have shown how distinct notions and standards of what counts as 'good research' encourage researchers to 'edit gender and sexuality out of [...] fieldwork discussions' (4). Locating risks and vulnerabilities within the practice of fieldwork, therefore, allows us to explore gender and power relations in field research. As such, this allows us to take cognisance of not just risks associated with health and illness, but also bodily violence researchers may experience. In light of the current pandemic, the uncertainties surrounding travel and mobility restrictions, as well as the ethical implications of doing field research and risking exposing or being exposed to the virus became a widely debated question (Rutherford 2020; Arregui 2020). Health concerns may also come up with regards to the impact of the physical (dis)ability and/or mental health of a researcher on their (un)safety, as well as doing fieldwork in conditions that pose health hazards due to environmental factors. Academics are also increasingly expected to engage with an institutionally required risk assessment. The latter is meant to evaluate how perilous one's field site is based on pre-existing maps assessing zones of varying degrees of risk. We aim to consider both the advantages and limitations of this type of assessments that are informed by geo-political power relations. Moreover, the importance of considering the researcher's embodied experience in the field extends to experiences of gendered violence and discrimination targeting non cis-male individuals, as well as LGBTQI+ persons and racialized minorities. Interest in the topic of sexual(ized) harassment in the field as well as structural problems that hinder dealing with it in academia has been taken up in recent discussions (Kuijpers 2015; Steffen 2017). How can we rethink or reconceptualise fieldwork, taking into account the possible risks and vulnerabilities researchers may face? How do we address the uneven fieldwork experiences researchers--particularly, women, LGBTQI+ persons, people of colour--encounter? Furthermore, how can academic spaces be supportive of researchers' needs? We see this workshop as a continuation of these discussions in addition to tackling other forms of intersectional structural or symbolic violence that are reported by field researchers. The workshop will run over two days with morning and afternoon sessions. In the first morning session, a training will be provided by Jerika Lauren Heinze from FISST (fieldworkinitiative.org). The second morning session entitled "risks in the field" will be led by Wiebke Wiesigel . In the afternoon sessions, the aim will be to leave the floor open for doctoral participants to present and discuss their own perceived or lived risks and vulnerabilities in the field. Based on short written essays circulated among the participants ahead of the workshop, the candidates will be divided into four or five groups based on common thematic concerns raised in the essays (for example, fieldwork in conflict zones). Each afternoon will then be dedicated to two or three groups who would introduce the main risks and vulnerabilities attached to their particular areas of interest, followed by a discussion in which questions and suggestions can be brought to the table. Jour 1 : Morning session: FISST training, provided by Jerika Lauren Heinze (fieldworkinitiative.org) Afternoon session: PhD present their own experiences and reflections on vulnerabilities and risks in the field. Jour 2 : Morning session: Presentation and discussion on how academic institutions understand risks in the field.Two external interveners NN Afternoon session: PhD present their own experiences and reflections on risks assessments before and during the field research.

Location

ONLINE !

Information
Places

15

Deadline for registration
Joint activity joint
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