Unit 1: The Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Research in times of War and Displacement

Welcome to the first unit in this module. In this unit we’ll be looking at the ethical and methodological challenges in carrying out research in time of war and population displacement.

Educational research methodology programs will often teach you how to conduct studies under everyday circumstances. Yet they pay very little attention to the challenges of conducting research in war-torn societies or under authoritarian regimes (for example when territory is under occupation).

Our focus in this unit is on research under conditions of displacement.

A large share of the global population is living in conditions of either restrictive regimes or protracted conflicts or both. The World Migration Report (WMR 2024) indicates that the number of displaced in the world has reached 117 million (with 61.5 million of these being internally displaced due to conflict or violence).

In 2022 the world faced the largest yearly increase of displaced persons recorded by the International Organization of Migration, mostly as a result of refugees from Ukraine fleeing the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion.

This unit is divided into three sections:

1. The first section will consider issues relating to language sensitivity, particularly in relation to defining and categorizing.
2. In section two, we’ll be focusing on quantitative studies of displacement at times of war.
3. In the third and final section, we’ll turn our attention to qualitative studies of war and displacement.

Throughout the unit, we ask you to keep the following questions in mind, given that conducting fieldwork under circumstances of displacement requires a more sensitive and transdisciplinary approach to knowledge production:

• How do we access our participants?
• Whose voice is presented and whose is silenced?
• Is local knowledge really local or is it framed by the outsider’s view (such as international researchers or grant-giving institutions)?
• Is it possible to assess the situation of a society living under very special circumstances (e.g. a lack of international control or reliable sources of information, limited mobility, forced immobility, threats to life, and threats of torture) with research methods developed for a society living in peace?
• What difficulties, inequalities or dangers do scholars and/or their research participants face?
• What are the difficulties of interpreting knowledge and its circulation (external/internal, open/limited access)?

After completing your study of this unit, you will:

• be able to answer the above questions;
• recognize the importance of language sensitivity and evaluate the impact of researcher positionality when conducting research in wartime and displacement contexts;
• understand the challenges and limitations of quantitative and qualitative studies in war-affected societies and among displaced populations;
• have the tools to identify the ethical considerations and navigate the complexities of sampling and data collection in conflict zones and among displaced populations;
• be able to employ different research methodologies (quantitative, qualitative, and digital).

Throughout the unit you will have the opportunity – which we highly recommend you take – to explore additional sources of information through the Exercises sections. Independent analytical work will help you develop a more nuanced understanding of the core information provided in the unit.

Extra materials and a reading list are provided at the end; these will guide you on how you can further explore different aspects of the topic.