Blog - Considering Power Imbalances in Collaborative Research

This project, through a series of blogs, examines the political economy of knowledge production and its impact on the security of researchers in conflict-affected settings, and in turn, the quality of the research that is produced. Specifically, the project focuses on the experiences of Congolese researchers working on collaborative Global North-South projects and aims to contribute to the conversation on research ethics, collaboration and decolonizing knowledge. Interviews and focus group discussions were conducted by the GEC-SH team in March and April 2019. The project takes the position that all forms of research whereby a researcher or institution relies on another researcher or institution for access, data collection and analysis, translation, transcription, writing, or other form of knowledge production or sharing can be considered collaborative. As such, the project examines various forms of collaborative research, whether short-term consultancies or long-term partnerships, in an effort to combat extractive forms of research. The project is part of RVI’s Research Collaboration project in partnership with the Groupe d'Etudes sur les Conflits et la Sécurité Humaine (GEC-SH) and is supported by the Knowledge Management Fund.