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| 1 |
ID:
179518
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| Summary/Abstract |
The data collection strategies we employ affect the quality of our findings. This is particularly true for field researchers of violence and human rights. Working in high-risk, low-information contexts, these researchers are at greater risk of methodological missteps and the accompanying shortfalls for their findings and policy recommendations. We interrogate one methodological challenge particularly common to research in violent contexts: selection bias. While methodology textbooks address this topic generally, little space is dedicated to the unique challenges scholars face in their attempts to avoid selection bias during fieldwork amidst violence. Using survey and interview data from the field, we demonstrate how such a methodological misstep not only biases results, but further marginalises the already marginalised by privileging some voices over others. Asymmetrical power relationships and the normative consequences of selection bias are emphasised. We suggest how scholars of several positivist methodological traditions can address selection bias in the field. Specifically, we urge critically assessing received insight about a fieldsite, multi-method research, long-term engagement in and with fieldsites, and acknowledging biases. We draw on our fieldwork in Mexico and Colombia, referencing our data gathering strategies, quantitative and qualitative evidence, and missteps.
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| 2 |
ID:
179514
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| Summary/Abstract |
As fieldworkers engage in research in unstable social contexts, standard processes of informed consent are complicated and unsettled. In addition, our work in the field raises complex questions of potential complicity with the violence around us. In this paper, we present a comparative autoethnographic analysis of these dynamics in distinct fieldwork and archival projects dealing with topics of state violence: Gruner-Domic’s work drawing on video archives of testimonios of genocide survivors in Guatemala, and Hallett’s research on the experiences of Salvadoran migrants in the U.S. immigrant detention regime. Both research projects entailed challenges in accessing data without contributing to further violence in the lives of research subjects, given complex and unpredictable future risks and fraught political fields involving warped representations of research subjects. Drawing on these experiences, we argue that ethical responses to such complex field research problems require a flexible approach to methodology, an acute critical reflection on the reproduction of violence, and an awareness of the temporal-geographic complexity and fluidity of risk. While ensuring that we follow standardised protocols for consent and data analysis, researchers should also be prepared to move beyond the standard and think both critically and concretely about our ethical obligations not only while collecting data, but also in the construction of representations.
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