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Title Access denied: Navigating access during ethnographic fieldwork on police reform in Kenya
Full text https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/429901
Date 2023
Author(s) Diphoorn, Tessa
Contributor(s) Leerstoel Pansters; Sovereignty and Social Contestation; Fleming, Jenny; Charman, Sarah
Abstract Gaining access to a particular research site and population is a key part of ethnographic fieldwork; yet, it is often unexplored or presented as a logistical, practical matter. In this chapter, I reflect on my own access trajectory to an independent police oversight body in Nairobi, Kenya, and show that access should not be equated to permission. Rather, access acts as a trajectory that is continuously negotiated throughout the research process. By exploring my own experiences, I show that research on policing, especially when including formal institutions, generally requires some measure of formal permission. In my case, this was not granted; yet, this does not entail the cessation of one's research. Rather, it entails the use of different and often more creative avenues to understand a particular phenomenon. Combined, this chapter calls for more elaborate reflections on access to field sites and populations: by centralising our access trajectories within our analysis, we gain further insight into our research subjects, that is policing.
Subject(s) Taverne
Language en
Type of publication Part of book
Format application/pdf
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Identifier (1), 266-281 (2023)
Repository Utrecht - University of Utrecht
Added to C-A: 2024-03-20;11:37:18