Conclusion
Researchers who carry out fieldwork in dangerous contexts such as in
modern post-war zones face some specific risks, which expose them to
increased levels of risks. The inability to avoid these risks has called
for proactive risk management, where acknowledging and addressing the
risks researchers face becomes an inherent part of the research process.
The proactive risk management process is a tripartite relationship, with
boundaries between institutional actors such as university ethics
committees, individual researchers and principal investigators/
supervisors, that acts as the bridge between the institution and
individual researchers. The boundaries in this tri-part relationship
change from being implicit, hypothetical and timeless in the
pre-fieldwork period to becoming implicit, real and time defined during
fieldwork. As a result, proactive risk management needs to be a two-way
relationship where information flow between the institution and
individual researchers is built upon a partnership to facilitate
risk-informed decision-making on an ongoing basis.
The contribution of researchers, principal investigators/ supervisors
and the ethics committee in building the partnership is mostly dependent
on negotiations and at first, establishing the hypothetical boundary is
somewhat difficult. This is because of the impossibility of having
perfect information and the possibility of any boundary, being moved to
either side on an ongoing basis. This raise the fundamental question as
to whether the boundary is placed in the right place – that is, has
everyone involved in the research project fully considered the data and
information and consulted with experts when making decisions. The
frequent lack of in-depth risk management by institutions that are
heavily dependent on researchers to provide data and information in
building a knowledge base has forced researchers to fend for themselves
at critical times without adequate support in place. This has pushed
individual researchers to depend on their informal network, such as
family and friends when things go wrong (Kenyon & Hawker, 1999).
Regular supervision could be helpful to some extent, although sometimes
this may be inadequate. However, there are advantages in the researcher
bearing some responsibility when away from the institutional frameworks
in some instances. For example, nominating a point person in the UK
during fieldwork would have been counterproductive and family and
friends maybe more appropriate. The intervention by institutions to
assure researcher safety during fieldwork may require them to act at the
highest levels; for example, interventions through diplomatic channels
may create new challenges to researchers who are already in highly
volatile post-war zones. As such, there are limitations to institutional
interventions when it comes to assuring researcher safety and merits in
individual responsibility.
The fieldwork risks posed to researchers have become normalised and
researchers are expected to accept some form and degree of risk while
doing fieldwork. However, recent post-war zones have become extremely
violent and researchers working in these areas face increased levels of
risk, which could be life-threatening. The importance of anticipating
the occurrence of negative events and proactively planning for such
scenarios to ensure researcher safety cannot be stressed enough when
conducting fieldwork in post-war zones. However, the fine details of the
plan need not necessarily be in writing. This is due to the peril of the
risk assessment plan falling into the hands of other parties, which then
makes the plan ineffective and may compromise the whole research
process. Therefore, familiarising oneself with the risk management plan
and memorising possible actions to meet the demands of possible
scenarios will avoid the need to carry a documented risk management plan
during fieldwork. As Kovats-Bernat (2002) explains when working in
dangerous fields,