Taking sides with Swedish protesters : gaining and maintaining trust in the field

Vestergren, SK; Drury, J

Abstract

Researching protests and activism can contain various challenges, even more so when then
the researcher embeds themselves in the protest context. Based on an ethnographic study of
an environmental campaign in Sweden we will in this chapter discuss the challenges and
risks the first author faced when collecting longitudinal interview and observational data.
More specifically, we discuss challenges and risks related to; gaining access to a protest
setting, gaining access to people, gaining access to stories, maintaining access and trust, and
becoming vulnerable and at risk in the field. In particular we discuss advantages, and risks, of
the researcher taking sides and positioning themselves on one side of the conflict. We argue
that, in the study of the Swedish environmental campaign, taking sides made us better
positioned to give a more accurate account of the campaign and campaign participants
through understanding the context and phenomena. We will also suggest that taking sides and
becoming part of the group – sharing identity – can in some studies increase the researcher’s
safety while in the field. We highlight the need for continuous negotiations and consideration
while in the field to ensure both the participants’ and researcher’s safety and privacy.

Citation

Vestergren, S., & Drury, J. (2020). Taking sides with Swedish protesters : gaining and maintaining trust in the field. In Y. Gülsüm Acar, S. Moss, & O. Uluğ (Eds.), Researching peace and conflict : field experiences and methodological reflections (149-171). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44113-5_9

• Acceptance Date: Mar 1, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Aug 30, 2020
• Publication Date: Aug 30, 2020
• Deposit Date: Apr 20, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 30, 2022
• Pages: 149-171
• Series Title: Peace Psychology Book Series
• Series Number: 35
• Book Title: Researching peace and conflict : field experiences and methodological reflections
• ISBN: 9783030441128-(print);-9783030441135-(online)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44113-5_9
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44113-5_9
• Related Public URLs: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44113-5