Eileen Pittaway

Placing ethics in the centre: negotiating new spaces for ethical research in conflict situations.

Abstract Issues of power and consent, confidentiality, trust, and benefit, risks to researchers, and potential harm to participants, are all contested when working with different cultures and within environments marked by violence and insecurity. Difficulty resolving these dilemmas may paralyse ethics committees, may fail to give the guidance sought by researchers, and will not help populations who are among the worlds most vulnerable. Even where efforts are made to respond to ethical guidelines and to improve practice, considerable impediments are present in many developing countries, including lack of formal ethical review structures in unstable settings, lack of required skills, limited political and institutional recognition of ethical issues, competing interests, and limitations in clinical and research practice (Elsayed 2004, Macklin 2004). In conflict settings, these limitations are more marked, and the responsibilities of the researcher for ethical practice are greater, but the mechanisms for oversight are weaker. Moreover, the constant focus on vulnerabilities and problems, and the often almost total lack of recognition of strengths and resilience, can further disempower already exploited groups and individuals. The capacity of refugees and communities in conflict to take an active role in the research process is seldom acknowledged, and undermines the potential for more innovative research which can help generate the evidence for better policy and practice.

Who Am I? Identity and Citizenship in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Northern Kenya

Linda Bartolomei, Eileen Pittaway and Emma Elizabeth Pittaway examine the loss and ongoing denial of citizenship experienced by refugee women as one of the intersecting forms of oppression and discrimination they encounter that determines their identity. The case study used is that of Kakuma camp in the north of Kenya as part of a three-year project focusing on refugee women at risk. They focus on notions of citizenship and identity of refugee women, charting the range of oppressions experienced by refugee women in the Kakuma camp, and explore the manner in which these oppressions intersect to compound the risks of sexual- and gender-based violence.

It is part of your life until you die: older refugees in Australia

Objective:  To explore perceptions of the issues facing older refugees, from the perspective of older refugees themselves and from workers in their communities who assist them.

Neglected issues and voices

The 2004 Tsunami highlighted the silence which surrounds gender issues, in particular the incidence of rape and sexual abuse of women and girls displaced by natural disasters and conflict. They include lack of recognition of womens sanitation needs, the need for safe, private places to bathe, secure spaces for single women and girls, lack of contraception, accessible sexual and reproductive health care, and legal measures to be taken against men who rape and abuse women. Reports of violence against women and increased domestic violence have been documented in all tsunami affected countries. Women from across the affected region came together in New York, March 2005 at the meeting of the UN Commission for the Status of Women to review the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. Through their efforts at that meeting, a United Nations Resolution was passed in which Governments made commitments to address gender issues and sexual abuse in disaster situations. Asia Pac J Public Health 2007; 19(Special Issue): 69.

Survey research with preliterate adult populations in post conflict situations using researcher-assisted self-completion questionnaires

Abstract This paper presents an innovative and effective approach for conducting surveys with preliterate adults in a context of limited infrastructure in post conflict Burundi, Africa. We conducted surveys with parents/carers of children with a disability and community members, as a component of mixed methods research with children and adults to provide baseline data for Handicap International in developing programs to prevent sexual abuse among children with a disability. To meet the challenges of conducting surveys on the sensitive topic in such field conditions, we developed specifically adapted researcher-assisted self-completion questionnaires (RASCQ) using images and verbal guidance. RASCQ allowed researchers to provide respondents with supports needed to complete surveys and the privacy and confidentiality needed to encourage honest answers. This paper discusses the development process, details of survey implementation, and quality of data obtained. RASCQ proposed in the current study can be used in various studies with marginalised groups and people in developing countries.

An Uncomfortable Fit: Australia’s Refugee Policy in a Regional Context

Attempting to compare refugee policy in Australia and Malaysia is like trying to compare apples and oranges. Australia is a developed, multicultural society that relies on a large government-sponsored program of immigration to maintain economic growth and labour needs (Colic-Peisker, 2009; DIAC, 2011a). Despite its geographic location, Australia maintains strong ties with Great Britain as the former colonial power as well as with other countries in the Global North. Malaysia is a fast developing post-colonial Asian nation with a rich cultural heritage, a national structure comprising of three major ethnic groups, and strong regional ties with its neighbours. Australia has signed and ratified the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol. Malaysia has neither signed nor ratified the Convention or its Protocol. In order to make any meaningful comparison between Australia and Malaysia these fundamental differences have to be addressed, and the implications of how these differences impact on refugee policy will be explored. In both cases the histories of ‘managing’ migrants and the cultural diversity of populations are open to interpretation, and are inherently political in their nature. As each country struggles to shape its refugee policy, and to work together within a regional and an international context of globalization and transnationalism, these differences pose many challenges.