Risks as everyday life

Doing fieldwork is probably the most rewarding task for researchers despite the risks that are involved. However, it can remain a daunting task for researchers to carry out fieldwork, despite the fact that they have some risk awareness. Risk, however low-level, is often an inherent part of conducting research in the field, and there are various standards and guidelines in place that seek to ensure that the risk of harm to researchers is as low as possible (Alpay & Paulen, 2014; Craig, Corden, & Thornton, 2000; Daniels & Lavallee, 2014). Methods for protecting researchers are therefore well-documented (Daniels & Lavallee, 2014; Kovats‐Bernat, 2002; Paterson, Gregory, & Thorne, 1999) and form part of the ethical framework for the conduct of research.
The significance of risks faced by researchers doing fieldwork warrants proactive risk management and forms part of the research process itself (Kovats‐Bernat, 2002; Parker & O’Reilly, 2013; Peterson, 2002). It is now accepted that the risks posed to researchers are multi-dimensional and include physical and emotional aspects. However, physical harm has been more widely discussed in the literature than emotional harm (Belousov et al., 2007; Lee-Treweek, 2000; Sharp & Kremer, 2006). Several factors contribute to this emphasis. These include a structural approach to risk analysis by institutions (Health and Safety Executive, 2016; Higgitt & Bullard, 1999) in which the ‘tangibility’ of physical harm often takes priority. For example, risks of catching a disease or physical injury are generally perceived to be easier to identify and manage than non-quantifiable emotional harm. Nevertheless, it has become widely recognised that emotional harm, such as anxiety and isolation, can be at least as significant for researchers (Bloor, Fincham, & Sampson, 2008). Moreover, physical and emotional harm may be inter-related, so that discussing them in isolation is not meaningful. For example, a physical injury could have emotional effects on a researcher that could outlast the time it takes to heal. As such, an overall understanding is needed among all involved when planning for risk management.
The regulatory frameworks in many organizations, such as universities, have pre-identified and standardised risk and management practices in place. These are helpful as far as they go, but maybe insufficient to capture the detail required for research in particularly challenging contexts. ‘Best practices’ and universal standards can, therefore, become a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they demand every project to meet appropriate minimum standards; on the other, the standardisation that is often inherent in such procedures may lack sufficient flexibility to capture and accommodate the finer details of risk associated with particular projects. Therefore, researchers must proactively engage in order to identify specific risks (physical and emotional) associated with their fieldwork.
To this end, it is now common to employ standard risk-assessment procedures (i.e. proactively identifying different types of research risk and assessing their potential likelihood and severity) and risk management procedures (i.e. proactively planning to minimise or eliminate these risks) in a coordinated effort of procedures, processes, roles and responsibilities (Green, 2016). The situation is therefore widely considered to have moved on from that described by Kenyon and Hawker (1999: p. 322), in which: ‘…only one of our 46 respondents has ever been issued with safety code of practice, [so] the majority of safety practices mentioned by our sample have been personally developed and directed ’.
However, some key questions remain. For example, to what extent a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is reinforced in universal risk management standards and to what extent this shifts significant responsibility for risk management towards researchers in the field, so that researchers may find themselves underprepared for what they might find in particularly high-risk environments. Researchers being harmed during fieldwork is a more common and severe occurrence than might be generally thought. This could range from the renowned ethnographer Ken Pryce’s body being washed up on a Caribbean beach (Bloor, Fincham, & Sampson, 2010) and the case of anthropologist Myrna Mack, who killed while researching internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Guatemala (Lee-Treweek & Linkogle, 2000) to difficulties in creating safe places where researchers could act as independent witnesses without intimidation and mistreatment (Brun, 2013). As researchers continue to carry out fieldwork in dangerous environments, and the dangers they face become an inherent part of fieldwork, there is a need to review these arrangements in the light of researcher experience. The article will explore risked informed decision-making and individual-institutional boundary responsibilities of assessing and managing risks at the pre-fieldwork stage and during fieldwork.