ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the Duty of Care held by researchers’ home countries as well as host governments in the countries where they conduct studies or fieldwork. It explores the emergence of new constraints, investigating to what extent risk-aversion and new election mechanisms affect practices of field research. The debate about the safety of field research abroad and the new security regimes affecting the organisation and carrying out of such research activities is difficult to map, given the multiplicity of situations, the levels of regulation and the constant evolution of the regulatory landscape. Research in and on high-risk contexts should not be understood as individual acts of exploration and explanation, but as an organised effort: an iterative, professionalised and increasingly saturated practice that amounts to systematic intervention. The literature on research in high-risk circumstances abroad can be divided in two strands: studies and reflections on research on dangerous topics and contributions that focus on research in dangerous places.
