Safeguarding Researchers on Fieldwork: An Event Reflection
Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash.
Earlier this year, UofG hosted a conference with the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) on supporting researchers to prepare for fieldwork. The audience included Graduate School Managers, Deans, Researcher Developers, Supervisors, Health and Safety Advisers and other staff supporting research students. In this blog, Elizabeth Adams (Researcher Development Manager at UofG; @researchdreams) reflects on the event and some of the challenges researchers face in relation to fieldwork.
This post was originally featured on UKCGE’s blog.
This event (Safeguarding Researchers: Preparing & Supporting PGR Fieldwork; presentations are available online), like many PGR fieldwork plans themselves, was subject to last-minute cancellation and rescheduling online due to lockdown.
Two months later than the original date, at a time when travel seemed unthinkable and fieldwork a distant possibility, it felt strange to be discussing fieldwork safety at all.
But maybe this was in fact what we needed – a pause to take stock of the situation we are in and how we want to emerge from it. What do we want fieldwork, and fieldwork support, to look like going forward?
Where’s the Issue with Fieldwork?
As we have found in other areas of the PGR experience, the pandemic placed a spotlight on problems that were already in existence. When it came to researchers having to make emergency plans to return home from fieldwork, how many of them had to find the funds to do that themselves, via their own credit card or friends and family? Did Institutions even know where or how many researchers were ‘out there’ (wherever there is)?
This highlighted issues relating to the fact that there is rarely a clear line of responsibility or systematic institutional approach to knowing where fieldworkers are at any one time, in order to support them in times of crisis such as these. Whilst a devolved approach has many advantages, and the sessions and breakout discussions had a wealth of ‘local’ expertise, the questions over responsibility to assess and mitigate risks and where ‘riskier’ choices might be taken due to lack of funding (say, for private transport rather than a public bus) pervaded the conversations over the two days.
What Do Other Sectors Do, and How Can We Learn From Them?
This might seem like a good place to start, but roles and responsibilities are less clear cut when it comes to research students and their relationships with their supervisors, departments and institutions than they might be in employment or in undergraduate fieldwork trips.
In my own session, I tried to pull out what the role of researcher development or graduate schools might be in relation to support for fieldwork. How can we help researchers to prepare themselves – physically and mentally – for the challenges ahead, perhaps guiding them through complex risk, ethics, insurance and funding processes, creating networks and peer support or specialist training.
It was extremely useful to do this with the wider policy context provided by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and UK Collaborative on Development Research (UKCDR). And also with expert knowledge (including a dramatic rescue story) of supporting staff and volunteers on overseas travel, from the perspectives of the Safeguarding Team at Heriot-Watt University and a Governance expert at the Department for International Development (DFID). These presentations sparked some useful conversations and also threw down some challenges, particularly around how we support mental health and wellbeing, noting that it’s not just the ‘big’ issues that people might find challenging while working overseas. The smaller, more chronic stressors (the not sleeping, the loneliness, sickness, worry that you’re not enjoying yourself) can sometimes have a bigger impact.
How Do We Create a Culture That Is Supportive?
The two presentations from researchers (Alex and Susie) on their own, very different, research experiences really brought into focus what the challenges – and also some of the solutions – might be for researchers in the field. They echoed what we heard from Charlotte (DFID speaker), that it’s not just the content of research but sometimes the sustained volume of emotionally demanding material (datasets, transcripts, interviews) that can have a negative impact.
In many cases, these challenges aren’t insurmountable, but they might require a more systematic approach. Innovations such as the SafeZone app, which many institutions are now adopting and which provides a useful connection for fieldworkers at home or overseas, were welcomed by participants.
Some valuable interventions might seem quite small, such as making sure that someone checks in with researchers and provides them with opportunities to debrief. But the questions that I’ve been left with are much larger and more about culture. How do we ensure that people report issues or ‘near misses’ so that others can learn from them? Where does the responsibility lie to support the students? Is it with supervisors, many of whom I know do this exceptionally well?
But what happens when supervisors can’t do it, perhaps due to lack of experience or knowledge? Who defines what is ‘safe’ for an individual anyway? Perhaps some supervisors don’t see the dangers that might be present for LGBTQ+ students or female researchers or other minorities, or they themselves are busy, overworked, stressed, or have always been told ‘just to get on with it’ and ignore the emotional impact of the research they are doing? Who will say something isn’t ‘safe enough’ (back to the transport example), when it’s a choice between letting a researcher do the work they are passionate about and not?
We need to build checks and balances into all stages of the system so that we support the work of supervisors but also provide a safety net for where this isn’t working. This might be about writing specialist counselling support into grant applications, where we know that research is likely to be particularly traumatic. Or making sure that researchers have access to peers and mentors from a variety of backgrounds. Or ensuring senior colleagues role model self-care. How can we ensure researchers can ask questions and discuss concerns, without the fear that they will automatically be barred from doing ‘risky’ research?
What Next?
At UofG we have established a cross-university working group to look at many of these issues and how we can join up several policies to provide a clear pathway for researchers that is genuinely supportive, rather than feeling like hoops to jump through in order to pass the test to allow research to progress.
Writing this post now, with Black Lives Matter at the forefront of my mind, I am also very aware that there is potential for any training in this area to be approached in a very white and ‘Western’ manner. As one of the participants noted, our international researchers will also face risks to personal safety in the UK, or in returning to their home countries in a different role (and indeed, so will many of our UK researchers). We have developed an online fieldwork training course to support researchers preparing for fieldwork. Perhaps we need to look at this, and our policies, to ensure that they provide the right level of support and signposting without making assumptions about what is ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ for particular individuals.
I think, as a sector, we are waking up to some of the challenges around fieldwork and collective thinking (with funders) is needed to address them. The new guidance from UKRI on preventing harm, is useful in this regard. Following on from the #MeToo movement, discussion can be easily found on social media relating to sexual misconduct on fieldwork, where power dynamics and ‘hot houses’ make for extremely difficult situations. These are areas where we need to take an honest and critical look, to address as institutions and collectively as a sector.
At the same time, there are also so many positive things to experience from fieldwork. I am sad for so many of our PGRs who I know are grieving because they won’t be able to carry out their meticulously planned trips, which they have poured so much passion into. I am grateful to them for sharing their stories at events like these and helping us put together our training and future plans, so we emerge from lockdown in a way that allows researchers to do meaningful fieldwork, as safely and healthily as possible.
Do get in touch with me (Elizabeth.Adams@glasgow.ac.uk) if you would like to input on the resources and share case studies or suggestions.
