Research in Times of Emergency: Methodological and Ethical Considerations in Immigrant and Refugee Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss the methodological challenges and ethical questions that emerge when conducting fieldwork with refugee and immigrant populations in a moment of emergency. I draw on research conducted in Missoula, Montana, between 2021–2022 as Afghans arrived in U.S. communities following the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan. I draw on vignettes from fieldwork to foreground the methodological, emotional, and ethical implications of recruiting recently displaced people in moments of emergency into an ongoing research project. I discuss how I navigated these sudden changes in the field, reflecting on my positionality as a researcher and training as a feminist geographer. I contextualize my decision to forgo conducting interviews with a recently displaced population and overburdened service providers within scholarship on feminist methodologies, migration studies, and ethics of care. In doing so, I reflect on the ambivalent nature of research, and what it means to conduct research on, with, and/or about refugees and immigrants.