Identity, Agency and Fieldwork Methodologies in Risky Environments

Monique Marks is Head of the Urban Futures Centre at the Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Initially trained as a social worker, she writes predominantly in the field of criminology. She has published widely in the areas of youth social movements, ethnographic research methods, police labour relations, police organisational change and street level drug use. Her research is mostly ethnographic and takes place in spaces that are considered compromising or unsafe. She is also the founder of the KwaZulu-Natal Harm Reduction Advocacy Group.

Bringing together a unique set of narratives from social scientists who have been situated in risky environments, this volume discusses the moral and ethical dilemmas of doing fieldwork in environments characterised by their insecurity. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

Foreword: Coping with Risks in Field Research Introduction: identity, jeopardy and moral dilemmas in conducting research in 'risky' environments 1. Field, ethics and self: negotiating methodology in a Hindu right wing camp 2. 'Don't say "research"': reducing bidirectional risk in Kibera slum 3. Environmentalist protection: feminist methodology and participant risk for research with Chinese NGOs 4. Ethical and methodological responses to risks in fieldwork with deaf Ugandans 5. 'We are your brothers, we will know where you are at all times': risk, violence and positionality in Karachi 6. Accommodating fieldwork to irreconcilable equations of citizenship, authoritarianism, poverty and fear in Egypt 7.Where the dust settles: fieldwork, subjectivity and materiality in Cairo 8. Risky closeness and distance in two fieldwork sites in Brazil 9. Rumours, fears and solidarity in fieldwork in times of political turmoil on the verge of war in Southern Yemen