Editor’s Note: this post discusses physical and emotional safety, and includes mention of death & dying, miscarriages & abortion, transphobia & homophobia, and violent threats to people. Please read with care – or choose not to read if that’s best for you. You can plan for your safety as a researcher with the new Postgraduate Research Hazards and Risks Assessment.
On a dark Wednesday night in May 2023, shortly before midnight, with everyone else headed off for bed, and me reckoning I could read one more thing before I joined them, I sat down to read a doctoral thesis I had downloaded.
The thesis was by the late American-turned-Kiwi, counsellor and quiltmaker Elizabeth Brooke-Carr (2000). She combined her backgrounds as an artist and professional counsellor to explore people healing from trauma through art. In this instance, through quilt making. Her research participants were 19 families who had lost someone to AIDS in Aotearoa New Zealand and who had created a panel to join the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt, now housed at Te Papa Tongarewa, the National Museum of New Zealand (Gibson n.d.).
Her research comprised of several components and stretched for hundreds of pages. Even I couldn’t read all of them, and I skimmed pages. I read through interviews with the family members. Analysis of each quilt from an artistic lens. Sometimes quilt panels were incomplete during the interview, so there would be a follow-up. She gave a biography of each person. They were no longer a footnote in an epidemiological study or a statistic on the Ministry of Health website, they were a person. She included photographs of the deceased loved ones. As an exercise, she asked the families to write poems to their loved ones, and then published them.
I cried reading them.
I’m tearing up just recollecting this and writing about it now.
I felt like I was personally losing 18 people I loved.
I couldn’t calm myself either. I wrapped myself in a duvet and sat on the couch (much to the displeasure of my cat who had made a nest from the duvet). I think I put on some tv, but I couldn’t focus on it. I think I eventually tired around 4 am and slumped off to bed.
I was on campus by 9 am, looking and feeling worse for wear. I realised that if I continue to research and explore stories of Queer people in Aotearoa, I will encounter many more like this. And some might be people I know. A line in Elizabeth’s introduction told me what I need to do. She said that to the best of her research, she was the first person to write about the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt, but she hopes will not be the last. According to Google Scholar, she is the last. Her thesis has not been cited, and there are no other sources on the topic.
Obviously, then, someone needs to research this topic, and if no-one else is going to do it, then I shall have to do it. But I cannot go through these feelings of grief and pain every time I read something.
A quick Google search indicated the term I’m looking for here is researcher safety. Researcher safety is a bigger topic (anyone looking for a thesis topic?) but in this blog post I’ll break it down into three main areas:
I’ll describe a bit more what each area means, cite some relevant literature and news articles, and give examples of when things go wrong. This post discusses death & dying, miscarriages & abortion, transphobia & homophobia, and harm to people. Finally, the blog post will end with some places to go to for more help. For all these aspects of safety, prevention and mitigation is the best strategy. By planning ahead and having checks and balances in place, you can get through this!
Physical safety
When we talk of researcher safety, physical safety is the thing we usually think of. It is the thing that will have been included in every class you’ve ever taken at university. Things like wearing a dust mask while handling chemicals, wearing gloves to handle materials, physically distancing yourself from dangers.
AUT has a legal responsibility for you here under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and can shut down your research if it is deemed to involve an unnecessary risk. Additionally, your research may require Police clearance.
You are also responsible for your own health and safety. You cannot be made to do something you feel is unsafe, but also must practice good risk awareness and management.
This isn’t to say that I’m scaremongering here! Most research conducted carries a low level of risk, but you need to plan for what can go wrong. COVID-19 restrictions derailed the data collection of many students. Additionally, students have been seriously injured or killed in data collection, including the recent deaths of several international students in Israel, UC Berkeley student Gabriel Trujillo in Mexico, and University of Alberta arctic researcher Dr Maya Bhatia in Canada in 2023, and University of Auckland student (Dr) Alice Yue Gui who drowned while taking water samples in 2011.
Sometimes research is deemed too risky to conduct and may have to be stopped. In rare instances AUT has declined or cancelled permission for data collection – this can happen, for instance, where data collection would put the researcher at risk from violence or natural disaster. In these instances, you would need to look at delaying data collection or modifying your research to collect data somewhere else.
It is important to think through risks and hazards with your supervisors. AUT has a Postgraduate Research Hazards and Risks Assessment specifically designed for postgraduate research; there is also a guide for drafting a Researcher Safety Protocol on the AUTEC website. A safety protocol or assessment should take into consideration current travel warnings, the physical environment, the people involved in the research and data collection, the social and cultural context of the research, the activities involved, support available, and emergency plans. Your school and faculty postgraduate teams may require copies of these plans before they will approve data collection to proceed.
Mental and emotional safety
As I opened this post, sometimes the content of the research is traumatic and can have an impact on the mental and emotional health of the researcher and participants. Sikic Micanovic, Stelko, and Sakic (2020: 162) describe danger to researchers as falling into four main types: physical, emotional, ethical, and professional.
Researchers into miscarriage, abortion, and SUDI (formerly known as SIDS) frequently comment about the emotional load to their research and sitting with the families. Paediatrician Dr Melanie Christensen talks about this in her 2017 Exposure oral presentation at University of Auckland.
Sociologist and historian Professor Joanna Kidman notes in her 2022 edited book the emotional strain placed on her research into the Tuia 250 project, where she thought she was going in as an independent researcher, but instead explored her own intergenerational trauma (Kidman et al. 2022).
Research in these fragile contexts is often a personal project, connecting the researcher with their own interests and experiences. While this provides them with a unique insight into the subject matter, it also poses heightened risks (Alessi and Kahn 2023; Baker, Bellemore, and Morgan 2023; Kumar and Cavallaro 2018; Sikic Micanovic, Stelko, and Sakic 2020).
As a result of their research, researchers can experience a range of deleterious outcomes of their work of distress, trauma, various and secondary trauma including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), physical and emotional symptoms, headaches, sleep disturbances, gastrointestinal upsets, increased stress, and loss of appetite (Alessi and Kahn 2023; Drozdzewski and Dominey-Howes 2015; Jackman and Sisson 2022; Sikic Micanovic, Stelko, and Sakic 2020). Unchecked, this can lead to burnout, depression, and anxiety (Jackman and Sisson 2022; Sikic Micanovic, Stelko, and Sakic 2020).
Just as in the physical safety above, it is important to protect the mental and emotional health of the researcher, metaphorically ‘putting your own oxygen mask on first.’ There has been a historical tendency for researchers to feel or be told they just have to ‘toughen up’ and ‘not be a snowflake’ (Baker, Bellemore, and Morgan 2023).
Self-care efforts in this space need to be genuine and useful. This means more than: “have you tried yoga?” or “try running a bubble bath and eating chocolate”, and utilising considered strategies (Baker, Bellemore, and Morgan 2023; Kumar and Cavallaro 2018). Kumar and Cavallaro (2018: 651) report that sexual violence researchers highlighted utilising several strategies, including regular debriefing, support and supervision, psychotherapy, creativity, and spirituality, while end-of-life researchers also highlighted the importance of exercise, relaxation therapies, socialising with team members and friends, and seeking work-life balance. Similarly, Victoria University of Wellington (2023) highlight on their website the importance of prioritising self-care throughout the research journey and having a strong support system in place and Jackman and Sisson (2022) note that good work-life balance, particularly among part-time students, was crucial to maintaining good positive mental health and wellbeing.
Sikic Micanovic, Stelko, and Sakic (2020) place a huge importance on keeping ongoing reflexive research diaries. This means more than simply noting results and observations, but also reflecting on your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. This is a good way of capturing fieldwork and reflections on and interpretations of observations and experiences. It is also a good opportunity to record feelings and emotional impacts of fieldwork experience. There is no set format for what this might look like either: many researchers prefer a small physical notebook for writing in, while others like Kidman et al. (2022) made use of Dictaphones and smartphones to record themselves talking through their research.
Downstream risks
Another consideration are the downstream effects of your research. Will publishing your research put yourself, your participants, or your supervisor at risk? When you apply for ethics, the risk to your participants is often discussed, but many people don’t think about the impact on the other people in the team. This is a known, but seldom explored issue in research (Drozdzewski and Dominey-Howes 2015; Moncur 2013).
This is something I’m conscious of in my own research exploring aspects of Aotearoa’s Queer history. In doing this, I am creating a digital record which can be found by anyone in the world, and it will have not only my name on it, but also the names of collaborators, who may or may not be members of the Rainbow Communities. It is already dangerous for people in the Rainbow Communities to travel in many areas of the world (including the Pacific) where people risk social violence, harassment, and even imprisonment or death.
Researchers involved in work exploring racial and gender discrimination in Aotearoa universities and Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) (such as: McAllister et al. 2019; McAllister, Kokaua, et al. 2020; McAllister, Naepi, et al. 2020; McAllister et al. 2021; Naepi 2019, 2021; Walker et al. 2020) were attacked in the media but also within their academic departments by colleagues, and one researcher received a death threat in her mailbox involving her children. Police were unable to find any leads and the case remains unsolved 5 years later.
Similarly, research exploring corruption and illegal activities carries the risk of retaliation.
Research does not have to be focussed on minority communities or highlight problematic practices to risk the researcher. Discourse unfolding following the publication of a non-peer reviewed opinion piece now commonly referred to as the Listener 7 article (Clements et al. 2021) impacted a range of people across the Aotearoa research community, particularly Māori, but also Pasifika, women, and trans and non-binary (McAllister et al. 2022).
Similarly, the work of Professor Sean Hendy, Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles, and Kate Hannah on COVID-19, vaccinations, and conspiracy theories (together and separately) resulted in targeted and systematic harassment of the three researchers, leading to an employment court case for University of Auckland for failing to adequately protect researchers.
More recently, MP David Seymour has launched attacks on academics Professors Joanna Kidman (VUW) and Lisa Te Morenga (Massey) and journalists for critiquing the current government and their policies. This poses a threat to employment of the people involved and encourages their harassment by conservative extremists. It also highlights a risk for academics to be the conscience and critics of society and for an independent media.
One of the things that we do to protect sensitive research and vulnerable research participants is to anonymise our data and embargo some of the results. To the best of my knowledge, at time of writing this post, I have not heard of people breaking research embargoes, but we have seen media reports of other kinds of legal protection being violated.
Recently, a systems administrator for Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand leaked confidential data which included the personal details of COVID-19 vaccinators and around 12,000 patients, leading to his arrest.
Another form of legal protection that is periodically violated is name suppression for individuals involved in court cases. As noted in this Stuff article, prosecutions for breaching name suppression are relatively rare, so violators may escape without consequence – although in 2021 unsuccessful Mayoral candidate Leo Molloy was convicted for breaching name suppression and fined $15,000 and given 350 hours of community work. Difficulties arise when the person breaching the court order are outside of New Zealand jurisdiction, such as UK-based Posie Parker who recently breached permanent name suppression. Police investigated this breach, but it appeared no arrests were made.
These are clearly difficult scenarios that are far outside the norm, but as researchers, we can try to protect our participants by only collecting necessary data and having data safety management protocols (AUT has guides for drafting these on the AUTEC website). You may be required to provide copies of these plans to your school and faculty postgraduate teams and to AUT’s research ethics committee, AUTEC.
Where to go to for help
The best strategy for minimising risk and maximising safety is prevention and mitigation. Plan ahead and make contingency plans so that you don’t get caught out.
Your first port of call for health and safety issues will be your supervisors. They’ll be familiar with best practice in your specific field and be able to call on experts and colleagues who can answer any specific issues you might have. It is a topic that you should bring up in every supervision meeting. If there is nothing to discuss, it has only taken a few seconds of your time!
One of the strategies highlighted by Kumar and Cavallaro (2018) involved maintaining social connectedness. The AUT Research Students’ Peer Groups are a great starting point for this. These will be other students in a similar place in their research to you with a similar background. I encourage you to not talk shop all the time, but being able to socialise and chat about what is going on with someone not involved in the project is a great way to continue to offload and maintain that all important work/life balance.
A resource for building personal resilience and skills is through AUT’s Bright Side Tupuranga Ake. Their programmes and coaching form a system of continuous learning where you can develop practical experiences to flourish inside and outside of the university.
When things get bad or you need some more specialised one-on-one support, you can connect with AUT’s counselling and mental health support services. These services are free and based at our three main campuses. The team also have some resources on maintaining your wellbeing, including stress and anxiety; and an online self-help toolkit.
If you have concerns about safety beyond this that you don’t feel your supervisors have handled or can handle, you can also talk to your school manager, school PG Head, Head of School, or Associate Dean (Postgraduate).
Resources to explore:
- AUT research ethics resources. Here we have all the research ethics forms you’ll need as well as some exemplars, and guides for drafting different data management and research safety protocols and plans.
- IOSH guide to responsible research. This guide from 2012 predates some of the more recent law changes but explores some of the considerations and reasonable and practical steps you’ll need to allow for.
- University of Otago resources covering fieldwork off campus and mental health & wellbeing. This includes some resources and plans that, while tailored to that university, can be useful to any researcher.
References cited:
Alessi, Edward J., and Sarilee Kahn. 2023. ‘Toward a trauma-informed qualitative research approach: Guidelines for ensuring the safety and promoting the resilience of research participants’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 20: 121-54.
Baker, Sally, Phillipa Bellemore, and Sally Morgan. 2023. ‘Researching in fragile contexts: Exploring and responding to layered responsibility for researcher care’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 98: 102700.
Brooke-Carr, Elizabeth. 2000. ‘Creative Mourning: The AIDS Quilt Aotearoa New Zealand’, University of Otago.
Clements, Kendall, Garth Cooper, Michael Corballis, Douglas Elliffe, Robert Nola, Elizabeth Rata, and John Werry. 2021. “In defence of science.” In Listener, 4.
Drozdzewski, Danielle, and Dale Dominey-Howes. 2015. ‘Research and trauma: Understanding the impact of traumatic content and places on the researcher’, Emotion, Space and Society, 17: 17-21.
Gibson, Stephanie. n.d. ‘The New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt’, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Accessed 10 May. https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/3641.
Jackman, Patricia C., and Kelly Sisson. 2022. ‘Promoting psychological well-being in doctoral students: a qualitative study adopting a positive psychology perspective’, Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 13: 19-35.
Kidman, Joanna, Vincent O’Malley, Liana Macdonald, Tom Roa, and Keziah Wallis. 2022. Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History (BWB Texts: Wellington, NZ).
Kumar, Smita, and Liz Cavallaro. 2018. ‘Researcher Self-Care in Emotionally Demanding Research: A Proposed Conceptual Framework’, Qualitative Health Research, 28: 648-58.
McAllister, Tara G, Joanna Kidman, Olivia Rowley, and RF Theodore. 2019. ‘Why isn’t my professor Māori? A snapshot of the academic workforce in New Zealand universities’, MAI Journal, 8: 235-49.
McAllister, Tara G, Jesse Kokaua, Sereana Naepi, Joanna Kidman, and Reremoana Theodore. 2020. ‘Glass Ceilings in New Zealand Universities: Inequities in Māori and Pacific promotions and earnings’, MAI Journal, 9: 272-85.
McAllister, Tara G, Sereana Naepi, Kelly Dombroski, Sian E Halcrow, and Christina J Painting. 2021. ‘Parity during parenthood: Comparing paid parental leave policies in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s universities’, Women’s Studies Journal, 35: 4-20.
McAllister, Tara G, Sereana Naepi, Elizabeth Wilson, Daniel Hikuroa, and Leilani A. Walker. 2020. ‘Under-represented and overlooked: Māori and Pasifika scientists in Aotearoa New Zealand’s universities and crown-research institutes’, Journal of The Royal Society of New Zealand: 1-16.
McAllister, Tara G, Cat Pause, JJ Eldridge, and Jemaima Tiatia-Seath. 2022. ‘Walk like an academic? The limits of academic freedom for those who are not white cis men’, Te Ira Tangata: 12-17.
Moncur, Wendy. 2013. “The emotional wellbeing of researchers: considerations for practice.” In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1883–90. Paris, France: Association for Computing Machinery.
Naepi, Sereana. 2019. ‘Why isn’t my professor Pasifika? A snapshot of the academic workforce in New Zealand universities’, MAI Journal, 8: 219-34.
Naepi, Sereana. 2021. ‘Pacific women’s experiences working in universities in Aotearoa New Zealand’, Higher Education Research & Development, 40: 63-74.
Sikic Micanovic, Lynette, Stephanie Stelko, and Suzana Sakic. 2020. ‘Who else Needs Protection? Reflecting on Researcher Vulnerability in Sensitive Research’, Societies, 10: 161-72.
Walker, Leilani, Isabelle Sin, Cate Macinnis-Ng, Kate Hannah, and Tara McAllister. 2020. ‘Where to from Here? Women Remain Absent from Senior Academic Positions at Aotearoa New Zealand’s Universities’, Education Sciences, 10: 152.
Wellington School of Business and Government. 2023. ‘Tips for prioritising self-care during your PhD’, Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka, Accessed 12 June. https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/business/turia/posts/tips-for-prioritising-self-care-during-your-phd.
