ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the methodological and ethical challenges of a multidisciplinary research project in Nairobi and Lagos. The essay draws from the team’s fortnightly reports and blogposts, as well as from one-on-one interviews with members of the team in May 2016 in which they consider the ways in which standard social science methodologies had to be modified, transformed and occasionally abandoned, in African urban settings that were anything but exemplary by textbook standards. The researchers present examples of challenges they faced in the field, including questions of translation, working with children and the importance of considering cultural factors when attempting to abide by international ethical guidelines regulating fieldwork and data management.
