Research with survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) is important. Understanding their experiences of violence and the impact this has on their lives will help to design effective policies to end this violence.
But research with survivors also brings potential risks, such as retraumatization, safety issues and feelings of exploitation. These challenges are magnified if research is done by Northern researchers, because of the power inequalities that exist between researcher, participants and research partners.
To overcome these risks, we have worked together with partners from Guatemala, Kenya and Uganda to develop guidelines which will help researchers, participants and organisations involved in research, to make sure that research is carried out in ethical ways, enabling it to contribute to the transformation of survivors’ lives and the elimination of GBV around the world.
Why such guidance is necessary became clear to us after we conducted empirical research on GBV research practice in Nairobi, Kenya in June 2019. We spoke with representatives of civil society organizations, women’s institutions, researchers and activists involved in diverse ways in research with or support for GBV survivors. Their experiences of participating in, conducting or facilitating research showed that, unfortunately, research carried out or funded by institutions from the Global North far too often is an exploitative experience for participants.
The ways in which research is conceptualised, undertaken and published tend to reflect the interests of the Northern researchers and their institutions, instead of centring the needs or wellbeing of the participants and the involved institutions in LMICs.
Research as exploitation
Partly as a result of how funding processes work, researchers tend to start a research project with a pre-defined research question, which does not always reflect the interests and priorities of research partners or participants. Often such research questions respond to so-called hypes: topics that, temporarily or more permanently, attract high levels of media, public or humanitarian attention.
Sexual violence tends to be a global hype, and the case of the sexual violence that occurred during post-election turmoil in Kenya is no exception to this. A researcher we interviewed remembered one of her participants complaining about researchers’ lack of interest in doing research that responds to their needs: One of the people asked me, ‘Why didn’t you sit with us and develop this research with us?’ and even asked us, ‘Is sexual violence the issue?’
Research could have a more positive impact on the lives of those participating in it, if participants were involved much earlier on in the research process, ideally at the funding application stage, to make sure research addresses actual needs rather than hypes that attract media and funders’ interest. This requires researchers – and funders – to allow for longer periods of time to establish rapport and define needs and mutual interests.
For participants, gatekeepers and locally hired researchers (who often belong to NGOs or research institutions), it is important to have clear expectations about what their roles are. Ideally, they are all involved in all stages of the process.
Participants and partners from LMICs can learn from the academic and methodological expertise of Northern researchers, while the latter have much to learn from the contextual and cultural knowledge and analytical skills of LMIC partners, which can greatly enrich the research process and results. Unfortunately, this mutual exchange is not always the case.
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