Subcontracting Academia: Alienation, Exploitation and Disillusionment in theUKOverseas Syrian Refugee Research Industry

Abstract

As the political economy of social science research has shifted, subcontracted research assistants have taken over an ever growing part of the research process. In this article, we report on a case study of the experiences of local research assistants employed on UK-directed research projects on Syrian refugees in Lebanon. While refugee research is framed in the UK as a noble project of helping the world's most vulnerable, these assistants speak critically of their sense of alienation, exploitation and disillusionment with the research they work on. Such problems arise, we argue, not just from subcontracted labour relations in the workplace itself, but also the broader political economy of how overseas social science research is currently produced. Addressing these problems requires giving better recognition to the work, interests and concerns of research assistants, but also rethinking and restructuring the global production of A scandal has been brewing in UK universities recently over allegations of international students paying commercial ghostwriters to produce academic coursework for them. Reports in the media claim that international students are four times as likely to cheat as home students; and a boom in the UK for-profit essay writing industry is being driven by a rise in international student numbers (Dean 2016; Mostrous and Kenber 2016). Explanations for why international students choose to pay others to do their university work for them focus on claims of their low level of academic and English language ability, problems of "endemic corruption"

Assessing the capacity for conflict and health research in Lebanon: a qualitative study

“…Thus more research needs to be done on this topic especially that another recent study highlighted a high level of exploitation and alienation of research assistants, who are mostly women, that are working on UK funded research projects focusing on Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The study emphasized on how the hierarchy in academia, which was also mentioned by few of our informants, could reinforce cultural and academic inequalities including gender [56]. Despite of the variation in the findings and building on the informants' responses, this factor can be considered as an opportunity for both the health research field and the cause of Lebanese women in general as having more women in the field in leadership positions will put women's issues at the front of the health research agenda and advocate for more inclusive and diverse research [57].…”

Health-related articles on Syria before and after the start of armed conflict: a scoping review for The Lancet-American University of Beirut Commission on Syria

“…Scholarship on conflict and health must take note of the political economy of research under such circumstance as has been shown for research on Syrian refugees by UK-funded projects, for example. In these projects, the production of social research on Syrian refugees has been described as being ghost produced by research assistants working overseas in countries hosting refugees such as Lebanon [ 20 ]. However, the focus of the latter research is firmly on Syrian refugees, and little is known about institutions and researchers who remained in Syria.…”

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“…As in the South African case, local Greek scholars are often addressed as informants, asked to assist with access, to provide voluntary (or certainly underpaid) labor as native experts for sojourning scholars from the Euro‐American North, and to advise on study‐abroad programs and student internships in the increasingly competitive field of refugee relief (Rozakou, forthcoming). As highlighted in a recent article on the “subcontracting” of projects to local research assistants (Sukarieh and Tannock ), this is a troubling but familiar pattern in studies of displacement on both the European margins and in the Global South.…”