Collecting primary data for academic research in crisisaffected- regions: challenges and recommendations

Abstract

Collecting primary data for research is one of the most critical stages in the research journey; it is the practical element of the research that requires access to data embedded in fieldwork. If the primary data is collected from a crisis-affected-regions, the fieldwork can generate a high risk to the researcher. The aim of this paper is to investigate the challenges of data collection in crisis-affected-regions. The personal experience of seven different PhD researchers who collected their primary data from crisis-affected-regions are presented and analysed in the paper. The findings suggest that the risks of collecting primary data from crisis-affected-regions can involve different challenges: some of them are related to the researcher, such as a lack of awareness around the aspects of the crisis context. Some other challenges are related to the research study, such as non-clarity of aims and objectives. Also, within the context of study the main challenge of collecting data is a lack of accessibility to data sources and documents. The paper provides different suggestions to improve the practices of collecting primary data from crisis-affected-regions. These are: providing supportive training to researchers who intend to research in crisis-affected-regions, networking with other researchers with the same interests, increased regular meetings with the supervisor, adapting an appropriate approach for collecting the data, and having a risk management plan.