Field research is often complicated by a range of difficulties that undermine investigative access. Insecurity and threats affect researchers’ personal safety. On a daily basis, researchers in the Global South work in insecure settings gripped by socio-economic crisis. They may hail from national and international universities, public and private research centers, as well as local and international non-governmental organizations (NGO’s). Through their research, they aim to collect data that will contribute to a better understanding of a given environment – with the hope that this, in turn, will ultimately bring about improvements in the lives of those living there. Yet the populations these researchers survey can view things quite differently. In the eyes of many participants, the researcher appears as a sort of researcher-glutton – someone who gobbles up information for his own purposes, without ever showing any sort of accountability to his respondents. This raises questions as to how one can navigate relationships in the field and guarantee the quality of the data respondents provide, when one is viewed from the outset as a researcher-glutton.

The diversity of the researchers working in various research fields helps, in large part, to explain the misgivings that respondents and primary data providers harbor toward this pursuit. At the moment, rural and urban areas of North and South Kivu are overrun by NGO and university researchers conducting praxeology-based data collection on a range of issues connected to the local setting. More and more often, in almost all parts of the region, you find that when you have to introduce yourself as a researcher, people look at you as a potbelly – someone who has already eaten his own fill, so to speak, and has now come to waste the time of peasants who were minding their own business. Thus, respondents tend to develop an attitude of distrust and are increasingly disinclined to make time for interviews. They believe that the researcher’s pockets are lined with money, and yet he is here to take up their time without compensating them for it. As a result, the researcher (usually operating on a tight calendar with a fixed timeline) must often devote long days to winning over his respondents.

During a field visit to Bugorhe in the Kabare chieftaincy of South Kivu, respondents told us, “Munakuja tena? Mulisha kula byenu na munataka kukamata muda yetu bure. Tutakuwa tuna wapa na sisi atuone kitu.” (“You’re back again? You already ate your fill and you just want to waste our time for nothing. We give it to you and we don’t see anything in return.”) When researchers are perceived as ‘getting fat off their respondents’ time and energy’, it’s easy to see how this could present problems for reliable data collection. During a group interview in Rutshuru in North Kivu’s Bwisha chieftancy, one respondent asked, “Izi siku zote munafanyaka utafiti, amujashibaka nakutafuta byenye atuonake matunda?” (“How is it that after all these days of research, you’re still not sated – and we never see any of the fruits of your findings?”)

This type of reaction shows us several things. To begin with, in view of the meaning it has taken on among peasants, the term “research” needs to be better clarified. In the rural worldview, it is difficult to dissociate research from social action and development. Often, suspicions and worries about research need to form the focus of sensitization efforts to inform peasants about the merits of conducting an academic study in an insecure and impoverished setting. That being said, some researchers make infeasible promises to their respondents. The latter are then left hoping that the data they provided will one day materialize into social action and development of which they will get to be the primary beneficiaries. Rather than clinging to infeasible promises, in order not to sin against the ethical values of their fields, researchers should instead sensitize their informants on their work and fully explain the rationale behind their research.

At the same time, it must be understood that extolling the value of ‘research for research’s sake’ won’t mean very much to people living in situations of extreme poverty. It is necessary to demonstrate genuine accountability and show people how the data they provide is used and what purpose it later serves. This stage of research is frequently ‘forgotten,’ since it isn’t always easy to face a community’s skepticism as to what a research project has – or, often, has not – been able to achieve.

Finally, there is a question of figuring out how to translate research results into formats beyond just those that can be useful in donor or academic circles. Why not try to create some output that could be accessible and interesting for the communities where data was collected? One could, for example, look into the possibility of theater workshops, comic books, songs, or other accessible media that take the popularization of research seriously and allow local populations to “connect with” results. Even if this may not live up to a community’s hopes that a research project will change their living conditions, at least it shows that the researcher has not forgotten them, and respects their engagement.

Too often though, the resources are lacking for a real interaction with respondent populations beyond the data collection phase. The researcher arrives, he takes ‘his share,’ and then he disappears. And this, then, is how researchers in the Global South become phantoms to their respondents and to communities in the field.

So researchers working in the Global South in settings of poverty and insecurity face a multitude of challenges and constraints. In the field, they must contend with poverty, war, and the outstretched hands of the local populace. Yet, research standards must be tailored not only to researchers’ expectations with regard to their personal safety and psychological wellbeing, but also to the needs expressed by their respondents. Otherwise, these difficult conditions will also drive researchers in the Global South to become phantoms or gluttons.