Research Data Collection in Challenging Environments: Barriers to Studying the Performance of Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Constituency Information Centres (PCICs)

Abstract

This article describes and analyses data collection challenges encountered in the course of research into the performance of Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Constituency Information Centres (PCICs). During collection of data on the work of PCICs in various constituencies across the country, many of them rural, the following challenges were encountered: low response rates; unreliable road access; unsuitable physical locations of PCICs, including politicised locations; political and legal restrictions; time management and financial challenges; and religious and cultural barriers. The article concludes that researchers planning data collection in developing-world environments must be cognizant of the particular challenges these environments may pose, while at the same time contending with challenges that all researchers, in both developed and developing worlds, face, such as the need ensure strong connections with people based in the local environments in which data collection is to take place.