Beyond Retraumatization: Trauma-Informed Political Science Research

Abstract Ethics guides for political science instruct researchers to avoid retraumatization of human subjects (for example, APSA 2022; Fujii 2012). Meanwhile, human subject research on sensitive topics, including violence and repression, has increased. This paper clarifies what is at stake when we talk about research participant distress and provides recommendations for handling concerns about trauma and retraumatization. It offers a new framework for trauma-informed political science research. This framework reflects the conclusions of the empirical literature on the risk of distress in different research settings as well as critical normative perspectives on consequentialist research ethics. In particular, it identifies two approaches for trauma-informed political science research: one for research in less vulnerable contexts and one for research with contexts that are vulnerable in terms of limited resources, ongoing suffering, and/or geopolitical instability. The framework details best practices for informed consent, debriefing, and more within each approach. The paper also addresses the special challenges of political violence research. While the literature suggests that retraumatization as such is rarely a major risk of research, the paper highlights that a narrowly defined concept of retraumatization can lead us to neglect other trauma-informed concerns.