Building an ethical research culture: Scholars of refugee background researching refugee-related issues

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the need to decolonize refugee research, and migration research more generally, points to the urgency of challenging ongoing colonial power structures inherent in such research. Increased involvement of scholars with lived experience is one way to challenge and remake unequal and colonial power relations. Through discussions with researchers of forced migration, we aimed to explore the challenges, barriers, and supports related to involvement in such research, and to identify how research practices and structures could be improved to increase and facilitate the involvement of scholars with refugee backgrounds. In this field reflection, we highlight key points and suggestions for better research practice that emerged from these discussions. In doing so, we are endeavouring to contribute to the important ongoing conversation about ethics and decolonizing research. We build on existing ethical guidelines by opening up some of the complexities of ethical practice and offering concrete actions that can be taken to work through these.