From Ethical Challenges to Opportunities: Reflections on Participatory and Collaborative Research with Refugees in Australia

ABSTRACT

This reflective article draws upon our recent experiences in researching with refugees, especially women and youth, who have resettled in Australia. It is a practice and research-oriented article that presents our experience as a series of ethical challenges and how these were resolved to form opportunities for ongoing collaboration. We discuss the limitations of existing ethical guidelines relating to research with displaced people especially refugees; the difficulties of gaining consent in a manner that balances university requirements with participant self-determination; the issue of tangible benefits and reciprocity for participants; the challenge of accurate representation of refugee voices, using imagery; and finally our ongoing accountability to participants. In trying to address these issues, our projects have used a participatory, collaborative research method, in keeping with recent calls for greater use of this approach. In doing so, we have attempted to redistribute social power, ownership of results and resources from the researchers to the participants. We posit that giving refugee participants the opportunity to actively participate in sharing their stories is empowering and builds strength and resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugees
• resettlement
• reflexivity
• ethics
• youth
• women

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge our research participants and the research teams in both projects.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was supported by two projects: the first funded by Healthway (The Health Promotion Foundation of Western Australia [grant number 24265] and the second by the Office of Learning and Teaching [grant number ID15-4758].

Notes on contributors

Jaya A R Dantas

Jaya A R Dantas is Dean International, in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of International Health, in the School of Public Health at Curtin University in Western Australia. She coordinates the Research Program (MPhil & PhD) in International Health. Jaya has worked for 32 years in India, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Australia and has undertaken teaching and research in Timor Leste, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Pakistan and South Africa. Her research interests focus on post-conflict adversity on women and youth; the social determinants of health, and resilience and empowerment processes among refugee and migrant populations. Jaya’s research uses rights based participatory approaches to understand health and social inequalities. She is experienced in international field research comprising community household surveys, and participatory intervention research. In all her work and advocacy, Jaya brings to the role her global lived experiences on gender, education and health.

Shelley Gower

Shelley Gower is a Research Officer in the International Health Program, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University in Western Australia, where she has been involved in refugee and migrant research since 2015. She is also a Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine and has previously been involved in research projects focusing on women’s experiences of maternity care, building nursing capacity in Tanzania, and development of cultural competence in Australian nursing students. Shelley has Post Graduate qualifications in Education and Health Policy, and experience teaching in Perth high schools and internationally. She is currently a PhD candidate in International Health at Curtin University.