“Research contracts rarely include any sort of clause about researchers’ physical safety – much less, their mental well-being. Responsibility for these aspects of the work falls entirely to individual researchers themselves.”

Élisée Cirhuza, Irène Bahati, Thamani Précieux Mwaka and An Ansoms

“A (non-academic) collaborator living in Canada – and, what’s more, a member of my own ethnic community – was the first to attack me. He circulated a message on social media questioning my findings. But beyond simply challenging my research, he called on armed groups to kill me.”

Bosco Muchukiwa

“This dynamic evokes a sort of ‘academic colonialism’ that fails to treat the research assistant as a collaborator whose rights are equal to those of counterparts from the Global North.”

Stanislas Bisimwa Baganda

“Shouldn’t they have the opportunity to be a part of the subsequent stages of a study, even after the submission of their reports? This sort of visibility could, after all, open doors for them and allow them to make professional progress.”

Judith Buhendwa Nshobole

“By ignoring a key actor who knows the data better than anybody, one ends up missing out on valuable insights and original analytical perspectives.”

Bienvenu Mukungilwa

“[I]t’s clear that there are still major power imbalances and counterproductive rationales within the academic enterprise. Because of unfounded assumptions, the work of research assistants in the production of knowledge often remains entirely invisible.”

Emery Mudinga

“[P]roject leaders often deploy research assistants as simple ‘data collection robots’, without first involving them in methodological reflections or giving them the space in which to provide valuable orientation for their foreign counterparts.”

Vedaste Cituli Alinirhu

“The issues an NGO targets are not necessarily related to the realities or the actual problems that the population experiences but rather are determined by the organisation’s own priorities.”

Pierre Basimise Ngalishi Kanyegere

“The subordination of African thought to Western paradigms extends from teaching programmes through research projects to the point of publication by supposedly well-regarded Western journals.”

Joël Baraka Akilimali

“Real collaboration isn’t only about doing things together at each stage, including project design and proposal writing; it implies questioning the reference frameworks and practices we rely on.”

Koen Vlassenroot

“If actors in the field come to regard the researcher as a spy, or to see him or her as a threat due to meetings or interviews, then there’s reason to fear that the entire research project will be called into question. It eventually can also put the researcher’s life in danger.”

Josaphat Musamba

“If the disguise is revealed, how should researchers explain themselves? What are the implications of gathering data in disguise from an ethical standpoint?”

Précieux Thamani Mwaka, Stanislas Bisimwa Baganda and An Ansoms

“The simple act of being present or asking questions on a certain topic can create a new conflict and/or revive an existing one.”

Eric Batumike Banyanga

“[A] research assistant’s involvement is not limited to data collection alone… the assistant must often work under the pressure of a timetable imposed by a donor who may not have a sufficient understanding of realities on the ground.”

Esther Kadetwa

“Academic and research institutions must take the lead in improving the remuneration of researchers from the Global South, by taking into account the complexities and risks that arise in the field.”

Élisée Cirhuza

“Knowledge production protocols instruct us to detach ourselves from our field in order to study it. But what does this imply for field ethics in poor and insecure places?”

Anuarite Bashizi

“There is thus a permanent tension between one’s passion for a particular subject of research, and the scholarly detachment one needs in order to study the topic in an academically valid way. This tension is all the more intense for researchers and research assistants living in their own research area.”

Francine Mudunga

“I was alone with a driver, who took me to see a spot where a rebel commander had killed a Colonel from the national army. I was familiar with the Colonel in question, as he had been one of the leaders of my own community.”

Thamani Mwaka Précieux

“The actors in the first block have access to research funding and usually have full control over the research process. They determine the code of conduct and the terms of reference and try to ensure that a minimum of the research objectives is appropriated by recruited research assistants through short-term training programmes.”

Godefroid Muzalia

“Conceiving of ourselves as brothers in some sense (‘kaka, ndugu’), we found mutual support was as central as the mutual criticism to our improvement.”

Josaphat Musamba and Christoph Vogel

“The question they ask is always the same: ‘When will we get a report on your findings?’ For lack of a better response, I tell them (dying a little inside), ‘Hold on; we’re still thinking it through.’ Deep down, though, I know no report is coming. And this weighs on me.”

Christian Chiza Kashurha

“[I]n the absence of any measures to provide communities with the results of the research they participate in, one can already see participants displaying an attitude of reticence and/or refusal that may jeopardize the work of future researchers on the ground…”

Isaac Bubala Wilondja

“[T]he researcher can’t just force her way into the field; her access to the information she needs to carry out good research is always dependent on the good will of the research participants.”

Irène Bahati

“When researchers are perceived as ‘getting fat off their respondents’ time and energy’, it’s easy to see how this could present problems for reliable data collection.”

Espoir Bisimwa Bulangalire