Contributing to the “Covid-19 and the Social Sciences” essay series, Oscar Abedi, Maria Eriksson Baaz, David Mwambari, Swati Parashar, Anju Oseema Maria Toppo, and James Vincent outline various paths toward reducing field research’s potential for exploitation, especially that of Global South collaborators. The pandemic has highlighted inequalities and immobility that differently affect facilitating researchers and contracting researchers. In response, the authors identify key issues that institutions, publishers, and individual researchers must reflect on in order to counteract these imbalances—and take advantage of an opportunity to fundamentally transform field research into collaborative knowledge production.
James B.M. Vincent
James B.M. Vincent holds a master of arts degree in governance and development from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and is a researcher and consultant on governance, development and conflict-related issues; on youth issues, especially youth development and employment creation programs; and agriculture in Sierra Leone and the Mano River region. He has worked with major donors (World Bank, DfID, the UN) as well as research teams and groups from Europe and the United States. He is the author of A Village-Up View of Sierra Leone’s Civil War and Reconstruction: Multi-layered and Networked Governance (Institute of Development Studies, 2012), and has co-authored a number of book chapters.