Engaging refugees as researchers — including as interviewers, interpreters, and enumerators — can improve the quality of research. However, it can also pose risks for those refugees remaining in the field and perpetuate ongoing issues of power and exploitation.

In the newly-published Handbook of Research Methods in Migration, Dr. Evan Easton-Calabria authors a chapter on “Engaging refugees as researchers: ethics, challenges, successes.”

This chapter takes an honest look at conducting qualitative research with refugees, highlighting some of the successes as well as challenges Dr. Easton-Calabria has encountered over twelve years of leading and co-leading research in East Africa.

This includes geographic and emotional distance to field sites and interview material, project delays, and asymmetry in life circumstances, all of which can often be overlooked in project planning and budgeting.

Dr. Easton-Calabria pays particular attention to the process of remote collaborative research with refugees, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter presents research initiatives seeking to improve the ‘ratio’ of refugees in research, followed by ethical reflections and recommendations for practice.

The book is available from Edward Elgar Publishing and is co-edited by William L. Allen and Carlos Vargas-Silva of University of Oxford.