Ethics, empathy, and fear in research on violent conflict
| Author | Anastasia Shesterinina |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343318783246 |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Research Articles |
Ethics, empathy, and fear in research
on violent conflict
Anastasia Shesterinina
Department of Politics, University of Sheffield
Abstract
The discussion of ethics in the social sciences focuses on ‘doing no harm’ and ‘giving back’ to research participants, but
does not explore the challenges of empathyand fear in research with participants in political violence and war. Drawing
on 180 in-depth interviews on the Georgian–Abkhaz war of 1992–93 collected over eight months between 2010 and
2013 primarilyin Abkhazia, but also Georgia and Russia,I argue that researchers can come to empathize with some but
fear other participants in past and present violence. Theseemotional responses can influence researchers’ability to probe
and interpret interviews and respondents’ ability to surpass strong positions to explore dilemmas of participation in
violence. By empathizing with not only ‘victims’ and ‘non-fighters’ as I had expected based on my pre-existing moral-
conceptual categories, but also participants in the war, I found that individuals adopted multiple overlapping roles and
shifted between these roles in the changing conditions of violence. In contrast, failing to empathize with and fearing
those who continued to participate in violence after the war of 1992–93 limited my ability to fully appreciate the
complexity of their participation, but shed light on the context of violence in contemporary Abkhazia. This analysis
shows that reflection on the role of empathy and fear in shaping our interactions with research participants can help
advance our understanding of participation in violence and this difficult research context.
Keywords
civil war, empathy, ethics, fear, political violence, qualitative field research
Introduction
The discussion of ethics in the social sciences focuses
almost exclusively on the researchers’ duty to protect
human subjects from any potential harm that may come
from participation in research (Wood, 2006). The
imperative applies to the ethics board process and as an
ongoing responsibility of researchers – from research
design to publication (Fujii, 2012). Feminist scholars
take a step further, ‘insist[ing] that a researcher cannot
be content merely to record another’s life story for scho-
larly publication but must “return the research” to the
subject as a means of empowering the informant’ (Blee,
1993: 605). Few studies, however, address the ethics of
empathy in intensive fieldwork
1
with participants in
political violence and war, which poses difficult dilem-
mas beyond the ‘do not harm’ principle and feminist
ethics of empowerment. Is it ethical to empathize with
some – but not other – participants in past and present
violence? How does empathy influence the results of
field research?
As a maxim, researchers who conduct intensive field-
work are expected to develop empathy for research par-
ticipants. As Thomson (2010: 27) argues, ‘we must act
beyond the ethical imperative of doing no harm; we
must display empathy, look out for the emotional safety
of our interviewees’. Yet empathy in research on violence
and war is not always straightforward. While it is possible
with such groups as the Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs
in Nicaragua (Bayard de Volo, 2009) and peasant
Rwandans after the genocide (Thomson, 2010), it may
not be with ‘unloved’ and ‘repellent’ groups (Blee, 1993;
Fielding, 1990; Gallaher, 2009), especially those we fear.
Corresponding author:
a.shesterinina@sheffield.ac.uk
1
Parkinson & Wood (2015: 22, fn. 1) define intensive fieldwork as
‘fieldwork that is qualitative and carried out during long-term (six
months or more), at least partially immersive stays in the field,
incorporating methods such as participant observation, in-depth
interviewing, focus groups, and community mapping’. Here I focus
on in-depth interviewing.
Journal of Peace Research
2019, Vol. 56(2) 190–202
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343318783246
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