Negotiating Expectations in Refugee Research: Social Work Researchers’ Unique and Intersectional Identities

While existing scholarship examines research ethics with refugee communities in the Global South, a dearth of literature focuses on how social work researchers’ intersecting personal and professional identities impact the research relationship between refugee research participants and researchers. From the perspectives of two social work researchers, one Black female from Uganda and one white male from the United States, this paper unpacks the implications of facilitating social work research with refugees in East Africa based on our unique identities. Rooted in critical self-reflections of our research projects at two sites (Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda and Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya), this paper illustrates the intersection between sociopolitical context, power, privilege, colonialism, culture, and identity in social work research with refugees. Furthermore, we explore how these factors impact refugee research participants’ expectations of our research projects. We individually and collectively explore how participants’ expectations were connected to our personal and professional identities.