Studying conflict-related sexual violence: What does it mean for researchers’ well-being?

Abstract

This article focuses on researcher distress and well-being. It presents a survey carried out with scholars engaged in conflict-related sexual violence research from various disciplines. Respondents were asked about how they reacted to the research they engaged in and how their respective academic institutions supported them. Academia’s understanding of and preparedness for research-related distress is limited. While there is a focus on researcher safety in the field, typically from the perspective of institutional insurance and liability, there is less focus on researcher well-being. Our findings suggest that there is a need, and indeed willingness, to address distress and well-being within the conflict-related sexual violence research community. The ability to do so, however, depends in large part on the institutional setting of the individual researcher. We find there are institutional differences between the fields of political science, law, history, and international relations on the one hand where scholars report more difficulties, than within the fields of anthropology, social work, psychology, public health, and gender studies, which appear more trauma aware. The findings show that there are great variations between different scholarly disciplines and institutions. We find a clear need to address these topics not only in academic reflections in scholarly articles, but also on institutional levels within academic communities.