Research as More Than Extraction : Knowledge Production and Gender-Based Violence in African Societies

Authors

Annie Bunting
Allen Kiconco
Joel Quirk

Files

Series

Studies in Conflict, Justice, and Social Change

Description

This volume offers practical, detailed guidance and case studies on how to avoid exacerbating inequalities while researching gender-based violence and other related issues in Africa.

Wartime violence and its aftermath present numerous practical, ethical, and political challenges that are especially acute for researchers working on gender-based and sexual violence. Drawing upon applied examples from across the African continent, this volume features unique contributions from researchers and practitioners with decades of experience developing research partnerships, designing and undertaking fieldwork, asking sensitive questions, negotiating access, collecting and evaluating information, and validating results. These are all endeavors that also raise pressing ethical questions, especially in relation to retraumatization, social stigma, and even payment of participants.

Ethical and methodological questions cannot be separated from political and institutional considerations. Systems of privilege and marginalization cannot be wished away, so they need to be both interrogated and contested. This is where precedents and power relations established under colonialism and imperialism take center stage. Europeans have been extracting valuable resources from the African continent for centuries. Research into gender-based violence risks being yet another extractive industry. There are times when committed individuals can make valuable contributions to a more equitable future, but funding streams, knowledge hierarchies, and institutional positions continue to have powerful effects.

Accordingly, the contributors to this volume also concentrate upon the layered effects of power and position, relationships between researchers, organizations, and communities, and the political economy of knowledge production; this brings into focus questions about how and why information gets generated, for which kinds of audiences, and for whose benefit.

Copyright Statement

Research as More Than Extraction © 2023 by Ohio University Press is licensed under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Language

eng

ISBN

9780821447987

Publication Date

10-24-2023

Publisher

Ohio University Press

City

Athens

Keywords

Knowledge production, gender violence, research ethics, decolonizing research, reflexivity, positionality, conflict situations

Disciplines

African Studies | Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence | Gender and Sexuality | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies | Theory, Knowledge and Science

Comments

Funding made possible by Path to Open.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Bunting, Annie; Kiconco, Allen; and Quirk, Joel, "Research as More Than Extraction : Knowledge Production and Gender-Based Violence in African Societies" (2023). Ohio University Press Open Access Books. 109.
https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/109