Reflections on Research and Distress

Helen SampsonSeafarers International Research CentreCardiff University

Brief....

Contextualise the field drawing on the Qualiti review of risks to researchers

Provide an update on the field

Structure

Ambient riskPhysicalEmotional

Situational risk (to do with researcher identity)Ambient risk as an amplifier of situational riskAmbient risk combined with situational riskRecent accounts of risk

Conflict zonesSecondary sourcesImpact of trauma on researcher (being human!)

Sources/references

Personal research experience and writing (Sampson and Thomas 2003, Sampson et al 2008)Qualiti Inquiry in researcher risk (Bloor et al 2007)Broader literature

Bloor, M., B. Fincham and H. Sampson (2007) QUALITI (NCRM) Commissioned Inquiry into the Risk to Well-being of Researchers in Qualitative Research. Cardiff: QUALITI.

Burr, G. (1996) ‘Unfinished Business: Interviewing Family Members of Critically Ill Patients’, Nursing Inquiry 3(3): 172–7.

Etherington, K. (1996) ‘The Counsellor as Researcher: Boundary Issues and Critical Dilemmas’, British Journal of Guidance and Counselling 24(3): 339–46.

Sampson, H., Bloor, M., Fincham, B. (2008) 'A Price Worth Paying? Considering the 'Cost' of Reflexive Research Methods and the Influence of Feminist Ways of 'Doing', Sociology, 42(5): 919-933.

Sampson, H., Thomas, M. (2003) ‘Lone Researchers at Sea: gender, risk and responsibility’ Qualitative Research, 3(2): 165-189.

Warden, T. (2013) ‘Feet of clay: confronting emotional challenges in ethnographic experience’ Journal of Organisational Ethnography 2(2) pp150-172

Ambient Risk (risk from the setting)

‘On the second day I found myself flattened by a car to avoid getting shot by a woman seeking revenge for her husband's murder in the town market, and on the third day I was sprinting away from a knife fight at a local hang-out’ (Gill 2004)

Oceans and weather

Enclosed spaces and noxious fumes

Very noisy

24 hour day - fatigue

Ambient emotional risk

Working with sensitive topics and in emotionally charged settings

[on working with families of terminally ill] ...........The effect of being involved in, and in a sense, sharing the private world of people in despair, can be a ‘psychologically and emotionally wrenching’ experience (Burr 1996:176)Trying to interview people who were so ill was heartbreaking because they were so very unhappy...I would be very very reluctant to repeat the exercise (researcher quoted in Sampson et al 2008)

Situational Risk (risk created by being a researcher with a particular

identity in a particular setting)

“I am reminded of an American colleague who recently left Morocco because he received death threats, a Palestinian ethnographer wary about continuing a project in Israel, and a Welsh colleague fearful in Yemen

during terrorist attacks” (Gill 2004)

Situational risk and identity

“That I could be hated like that – seemingly because of my colour alone – was a new situation for me. It was the inability to explain myself, or to enter into debate on a basis that would not be marked by race as an essential and insurmountable category that I considered most distressing. It was a slow, painful process to realise

that my colour was not a neutral or irrelevant feature of myself, but rather infested with a meaning of its

own, beyond my definitional control.” (Schramm 2005:176)

Situational risk and Hierarchy

Sex and gender

Sexist cultures

Ambient risk as an amplifier of Situational Risk

“We should not forget that sexual harassment and violence are part of most ethnographers’ social environment at ‘home’. If it becomes more acute during the fieldwork, it is due to them being cut off from their normal net of

protection, in addition to being in a new environment and thus less able to minimise

risks.” (Loftsdóttir 2002:309)

Little chance of shore leave

Small crew

Harrassment/inability to leave field/ vulnerability

Emotional ambient risk and situational risk combined

Role conflict

As I listened to some of these stories with my ‘researcher’ ears, I became uncomfortable when I realised I was thinking ‘this is really good stuff’ [...] I was thinking that the material they were giving me would be very useful for my thesis[...] I felt shocked that I might, even for one moment, lose my counsellor sensitivity (Etherington 1996:342)

Emotional ambient risk and situational risk combined

Reviving disturbing memoriesMy own memories surfaced as I recognised

similarities in experiences even though my own time as a refugee was nowhere near as traumatic. I found myself revisiting old territory and thinking about the kinds of things I would have preferred to forget (quoted in Sampson et al 2008

Risks in unexceptional settings

Feelings of betrayalthe identifications, dis-identifications, and

attachments [...] are (I think) a necessary part of the rapport building process but it is not something that one can simply leave at the office at the end of the day

Emotional lossI felt very lonely [...] I pined for my life in the field and began to feel very depressed

Conflict zones

Physical riskProfessional risk – being on the ‘wrong’ side of the fence (Possick 2009)Emotional risk- the impact of trauma and just being human

Secondary sources

Working with suicide notes

The records of social workers

The records of animal shelters

Why its so important!! The impact of trauma (and just being human)

Tara Warden (2013) account of surviving in the violent context of Guatemala (work with sex workers)

Suffering PTSDUnable to writeLow self esteemLife changing exposure to loss and to societal violence

Mitigating risk

Raising awarenessPlanning (reduce risk)Mobilising personal supportInstitutional support