The Society has published a new report discussing the ethical and methodological challenges of carrying out research with refugee and asylum-seeker youth in European cities.
Written by a team of researchers based across Europe, the report considers key issues from their research with young refugees and asylum-seekers in Brussels, Amsterdam, Leipzig and Newcastle.
It provides examples of research encounters that worked well as well as ones where challenges emerged, and offers practical insights and further questions for discussion.
One of the report’s authors, Professor Peter Hopkins (Newcastle University) said: ”In this short report, we reflect on the ethical, political, and methodological quandaries and challenges we encountered in our work with refugee youth resettling in European cities. Our hope in putting this together is not to offer guidance on the use of specific methods or to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these. Instead, we wanted to reflect on the challenges that emerged during our fieldwork and how we worked through these.”
The report is the first in the new Doing geography series, sharing and promoting the contributions of geography and geographers in an intelligent and accessible form. We welcome suggestions for additions to the series from new or established geographers – please submit a one-page outline to journals@rgs.org.
Topics might include (but are not limited to) key debates in geography, doing geographical research, equality, diversity and inclusion in geography, promoting professional practice in geography, or the impact of geography.
Read the report
Full report citation: Huizinga, R., Hopkins, P., De Backer, M., Finlay, R., Kirndörfer, E., Kox, M., Bastian, J., Benwell, M.C., Felten, P., Haack, L., Hörschelmann, K., and van Liempt, I. (2022) Researching refugee youth. London, UK: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). Available from: https://doi.org/10.55203/VCAT7733