From Protocol to Practice: Collective Reflections on Navigating Ethical Junctures in (Post-)Conflict Research

Research with victims-survivors of severe human rights violations raises complex moral and ethical dilemmas that often extend beyond the principles of do no harm and the risk avoidance and mitigation strategies prescribed by formal ethics reviews and guidelines. Yet, while the latter have been widely critiqued, extant scholarship provides little guidance for developing comprehensive ethics architectures that balance institutional demands with the need for adaptability to complex, culturally diverse research contexts. To address this lacuna, this article foregrounds experience-based reflections and insights on the research ethics of a large, multi-sited transitional justice project. Using an adapted Delphi approach to capture insights from successive team discussions, we examine the benefits, shortcomings and effects of the formal ethics protocols and guidelines established at the project’s outset, alongside the dynamic, context-specific practices that emerged during fieldwork and the self-reflective discussions that accompanied them. Focusing on four critical ethical junctures – (1) communicating ethics and the meaning of consent, (2) encountering and acknowledging violence and trauma, (3) sharing research burdens and benefits, and (4) balancing agency and vulnerability – the article explores concrete challenges, tensions and novel approaches that informed the emergence of a layered ethics architecture. The discussion and conclusion propose further strategies for fostering a closer convergence among these various layers through the adoption of an iterative, reflective and relational ethics of care, that can serve as a basis for responsive and meaningful engagement with participants in vulnerable contexts.