Unequal Research Relationships in Highly Insecure Places: Of Fear, Funds and Friendship

Abstract

This chapter examines violent contexts that equally represent specific challenges and threats to researchers and their collaborators and brokers. It offers a self-critical reflection on Morten Bøås's research with local associates in the highly insecure context of the Sahel. It also reveals how researchers from the Global North may wittingly or unwittingly incentivize associates to adopt risky strategies. The chapter looks at the center of Bøås's reflections, which includes the question of how friendship is shaped by the unequal power of relationships involved in North–South collaborations. It also describes the mixed bag of emotions experienced during fieldwork in a highly dangerous setting where researchers have more recently become the explicit target of some armed groups.