Ethics, empathy and fear in research on violent conflict

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 empathy and fear in research with participants in political violence and war. Drawing on 180 in-depth interviews on the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993 collected over eight months between 2010 and 2013 primarily in 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. These emotional 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 at the time of my interviews 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

An epistemic community comes and goes? Local and national expressions of heart health promotion in Canada

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective of this study is to examine the existence and shape of epistemic communities for (heart) health promotion at the international, national, provincial and regional levels in Canada. Epistemic community may be defined as a network of experts with an authoritative claim to policy relevant knowledge in their area of expertise.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An interpretive policy analysis was employed using 60 documents (48 provincial, 8 national and 4 international) and 66 interviews (from 5 Canadian provinces). These data were entered into NUD*IST, a qualitative software analysis package, to assist in the development of codes and themes. These codes form the basis of the results.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A scientific and policy epistemic community was identified at the international and Canadian federal levels. Provincially and regionally, the community is present as an idea but its implementation varies between jurisdictions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The importance of economic, political and cultural factors shapes the presence and shape of the epistemic community in different jurisdictions. The community waxes and wanes but appears robust.</p

Understandings of Self-Managed Abortion as Health Inequity, Harm Reduction and Social Change

This commentary explores how self-managed abortion (SMA) has transformed understandings of and discourses on safe abortion and associated health inequities through an intersection of harm reduction, human rights and collective activism. The article examines three primary understandings of the relationship between SMA and safe abortion: first SMA as health inequity, second SMA as harm reduction, and third SMA as social change, including health system innovation and reform. A more dynamic understanding of the relationship between SMA, safe abortion and health inequities can both improve the design of interventions in the field, and more radically reset reform goals for health systems and other state institutions towards the full realization of sexual and reproductive health and human rights

Understandings of self-managed abortion as health inequity, harm reduction and social change

This commentary explores how self-managed abortion (SMA) has transformed understandings of and discourses on safe abortion and associated health inequities through an intersection of harm reduction, human rights and collective activism. The article examines three primary understandings of the relationship between SMA and safe abortion: first SMA as health inequity, second SMA as harm reduction, and third SMA as social change, including health system innovation and reform. A more dynamic understanding of the relationship between SMA, safe abortion and health inequities can both improve the design of interventions in the field, and more radically reset reform goals for health systems and other state institutions towards the full realisation of sexual and reproductive health and human rights

Intersectionalizing European politics: bridging gender and ethnicity

This Dialogues section brings together research from two hitherto separate, interdisciplinary strands of European scholarship on politics: Gender Studies, and Migration and Ethnic Studies. Combining theories, concepts, methods and findings, the papers demonstrate what each field can learn from the other. By exploring various forms of citizenship and representation of ethnic minorities in Western Europe this section addresses the key contributions of Gender Studies and Migration and Ethnic Studies: intersectionality and the critique of methodological nationalism, respectively. Intersectionality challenges scholars to cross gender with other categories such as ethnicity. Methodological nationalism refers to the naturalization of national categories; critics dispute the assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political form of contemporary politics. Both approaches are far from mainstream in political science, and despite their potential they are rarely combined. This essay argues that central future challenges for political science are (1) to mainstream intersectional analysis; (2) to be critical of the construction of taken-for-granted categories and the way such ‘fixed’ categories result from our focus on nation-states; (3) to develop new mix-method toolkits to make this exercise feasible