Getting past the gatekeeper: Cultural competence, field access and researching gender-based violence – Evidence from four countries

Abstract

Increasingly researchers are recognising the importance of including the perspectives of children and young people in research and in the development of interventions and innovations, in order to understand their lives on their own terms. However, due to potential risks posed to children and young people in research, gatekeepers have an increasingly important role in play in granting access and in direct field activities, especially where the research could be deemed as ‘sensitive’. This article reflects on the access and field experiences of a team of international researchers in four countries – Uganda, United Kingdom, Jamaica and India – researching Gender-Based Violence (GBV). Thematic analysis and QSR Nvivo were used to analyse data from this qualitative study which combined descriptive research with autoethnography. The reflective findings suggest that researching sensitive topics with children and young people is necessarily problematic in order to safeguard them, but that gatekeepers and gatekeeping can potentially undermine important research.

Addressing Post-Separation Parental Stalking: a Multimethod Qualitative Approach to Producing Knowledge of Stalking in Children’s Lives

“…Practice wisdom was a cornerstone of our research on parental stalking. From the outset, the central strategy of the study was to plan and conduct it with people who best know the phenomenon (Miller et al, 2022). Practice wisdom emerged through our collaboration with professionals working in the Stalking Support Center and with young experts by experience who have experiences of parental stalking.…”

“…The increased interest in children's experiences of domestic violence and abuse has necessitated the development of many methodological and ethical approaches in research involving children (Cater & Øverlien, 2014;Christensen & Prout, 2002;Morris et al, 2012). Despite the progress, collecting data directly from children or with children is still relatively uncommon and challenging because of practical issues, institutional review board approvals, or other gatekeepers between children and researchers (Miller et al, 2022). In this paper, we examine the production of knowledge about children's exposure to parental stalking after their parents' separation.…”

“…In this paper, we examine the production of knowledge about children's exposure to parental stalking after their parents' separation. Our aim is to contribute to the methodological discussions on children exposed to domestic violence and abuse by presenting an example of how children and their perspectives can be included in highly sensitive research under the auspices of the gatekeepers (Miller et al, 2022).…”

“…Forming trusting relationships with the professionals was a precondition for being able to understand stalking as a specific form of violence (see Gibbs et al, 2013;Powell et al, 2020). To gain access to people who are hard to reach, it was important to form partnerships (Miller et al, 2022) and to work with the professionals, who were already connected with and trusted by the children and mothers (see Gibbs et al, 2013;Israel et al, 1998). In terms of the children's experiential knowledge, forming partnerships lent itself to context-sensitive ways of producing knowledge and reaching an understanding of how an individual child experiences parental stalking (see also Ellonen & Pösö, 2011).…”

“…In our study, the members of the project's steering committee enabled deeper engagement in service and policy development, as there were members involved who act in positions through which they can take the results into societal policy-making and effect change at the political and administrative levels. Particularly in the context of research on a sensitive topic, a multimethod approach requires one to consider the researchers' relationship with possible partners and the societal and contextual factors that are conducive to conducting the study successfully (also Miller et al, 2022). We already had a history of research collaboration with the professionals, so we did not have to start building trust from the very beginning, which helped us significantly in conducting a rigorous study.…”