Researcher Risks and Vulnerabilities

This book explores the phenomenon of researchers at risk: that is, the experiences of scholars whose research topics require them to engage with diverse kinds of dangers, uncertainties or vulnerabilities. This risk may derive from working with variously marginalised individuals or groups, or from being members of such groups themselves.

At other times, the risk relates to particular economic or environmental conditions, or political forces influencing the specific research fields in which they operate. This book argues for the need to reconceptualise – and thereby to reimagine – the phenomenon of researchers’ risks, particularly when those risks are perceived to affect, and even to threaten the researchers.

Drawing on a diverse and global range case studies including Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Balūchistān, Cyprus, and Germany, the chapters call for the need to identify effective strategies for engaging proactively with these risks to address precarity, jeopardy and uncertainty.