Beyond ‘Vulnerable Populations’: Fieldwork & Vulnerability in Political Science

Abstract

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has unsettled traditional ways of conducting fieldwork, presenting researchers with a set of new challenges and difficulties. Among them, we can consider how one can become a risk for others (by transmitting the virus) or be at risk in other contexts (such as when the health system is deficient). It is therefore imperative to understand how fieldwork can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities or create new ones. Departing from this angle, this panel, composed of scholars from diverse theoretical and substantive backgrounds, aims at bringing a broader reflection to the concept and understandings of vulnerability in political science. A burgeoning literature has started to take fieldwork experiences as a springing board to shed light on social scientific concepts, including the concept of vulnerability. However, within this literature, vulnerability is too often approached only from the angle of ethics and restricted to the framework of “vulnerable populations”. The latter focus, in particular, obscures the manifold dimensions of vulnerability in different fieldwork settings by naturalising vulnerability for certain groups, specifically the research participants, and neglecting it for others, most importantly the researcher or assistants. Furthermore, we argue that a conceptual opening-up of vulnerability is necessary to re-evaluate and appreciate the manifold forms and effects of vulnerability in a fieldwork context. We understand vulnerability as a universal human condition that “arises from our embodiment, which carries with it the imminent or ever-present possibility of harm, injury, and misfortune” (Fineman 2010). As such, vulnerability comes to the fore in several relations we engage in during fieldwork: between researchers and participants; researchers and their assistants; or between fieldwork practitioners themselves. At the same time, vulnerability can be used as a lens (1) to analyse the field and the participants in it; (2) to assess the ethical considerations stemming from one’s involvement; or (3) to evaluate methodological choices and how these can affect, positively or negatively, the research participants, assistants, and researchers themselves. Our panellists draw from their own fieldwork experiences to illustrate the multiple dimensions of vulnerability in the field and for fieldworkers. In the opening contribution, Wolfgang Minatti and Guillaume Gass set the stage by clarifying and defining the concept of vulnerability, introducing a relational view of the concept that appreciates the breath of its applicability to fieldwork situations. Using Hong Kong as a case study, Mariusz Bogacki discusses vulnerability and ‘prudent fieldwork’ in the context of democratic backsliding, highlighting the specific challenges for relations with research participants, as well as for the researcher themselves. Ophelia Nicole-Berva and Anete Ušča’s contribution looks at how research designs may reproduce or switch dominant narratives in the context of research with marginalized groups. Finally, Laura Ramírez Rodríguez and Wolfgang Minatti focus on research assistant – researcher relations in the context of fieldwork in post-Conflict Colombia to highlight that rather than just the two individual persons being vulnerable, the relation between assistant and researcher as such is one of vulnerability, forcing us to consider the ethical and methodological consequences of this dynamic.

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