Course Overview
Research in conflict and humanitarian settings is often seen as a technical task focused on data collection under tough circumstances. However, this course argues that such research is inherently political, relational, and ethically debated. Main methodologies in International Relations, humanitarian policy, and global health favor technocratic, quantitative, and neutral knowledge, often marginalizing local insights, concealing violence and abandonment, and maintaining colonial and geopolitical hierarchies. This course responds to interdisciplinary debates on feminist, decolonial, ethical, and political approaches to evidence. It provides students with methodological tools based on both academic theory and the realities of conflict and displacement. Emphasizing interdisciplinary methods, it aims to connect debates across International Relations, anthropology, global health, and humanitarian fields. It also seeks to decolonize research practices and highlight the experiences of communities affected by conflict.
Seminar Leaders
Dr. Khuloud Alsaba
Global Health Scholar
University of Edinburgh, Global Health Policy Unit
Dr. Khuloud Alsaba is a scholar of global public health with over 15 years of experience in both development and humanitarian sectors in the Middle East and the Arab region, working with state and international aid actors. Her research focuses on political and social determinants of health and health inequalities in areas of conflict and political instability. She completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh’s Global Health Policy Unit, where she studied as a Chrystal Macmillan Scholar and was awarded the Sir William Darling Memorial Prize for contributions enhancing the University’s global reputation.
Dr. Mohammed Nour Audi
Doctor of Public Health Candidate
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Dr. Mohammad Nour Audi, M.D. is interested in population health and its intersection with peacebuilding and state-building in post-conflict and other fragile settings. He completed medical training and residency in internal medicine in Syria, and worked in the Syrian Red Crescent Society as a paramedic until the initial phase of the conflict in Syria. Dr. Audi then moved to work with the international humanitarian sector, focusing on the rehabilitation of primary health centers and establishing community-based programs for the management of non-communicable diseases.
Syllabus and Readings
Course Schedule
THURSDAY, OCT 8
Week 1: Researching War and Humanitarian Crisis: Why Methods Matter
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Readings:
– Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies
Optional Reading:
– Nordstrom and Robben, Fieldwork Under Fire, 1996. Fieldwork Under Fire: Introduction:
Ethnography of Violence (p 5-10).
THURSDAY, OCT 15
Week 2: Feminist and Decolonial Methodologies
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Reading:
– Cueva et al. 2024. A Decolonial Feminist Politics of Fieldwork: Centering Community, Reflexivity, and Loving Accountability
Optional Reading:
– Patricia Hill Collins, 2000. Black Feminist Thought. Part One: Black Feminist Thought as Critical Social Theory (p8-12) Greenhough, B. 2024. “Situating knowledges, making kin and telling stories: Geographical encounters with Donna J Haraway.” Journal of Historical Geography, 85, 58–61.
THURSDAY, OCT 22
Week 3: Ethics-in-Action: Research Ethics Beyond Institutional Review Boards
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Reading:
– Ratnam & Drozdzewski, 2022.Research ethics with vulnerable groups: ethics in practice and procedure.
Optional Reading:
– McGowan, W. 2020. If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry’: Emotional labour, reflexivity and ethics-as-practice in a qualitative fieldwork context. Fujii, Lee Ann 2012. Research Ethics 101: Dilemmas and Responsibilities.
THURSDAY, OCT 29
Week 4: Research Design in Conflict Settings: Between Quantitative and Qualitative Methods
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Reading:
Martín de Almagro, M., Zulver, J. M., Anctil Avoine, P ., Tapias Torrado, N. R., & Berry, M. (2024). Doing Feminist Research on Conflict, Violence and Peace: Ethical and Methodological Dilemmas. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 53(1), 249-275.
Optional Reading:
Bilgili, Ö., Haagsman, K., Etzold, B., Godin, M. (2026). Doing Translocal Research Amid Violent Conflicts: Methodological Reflections. In: Etzold, B. Godin, M. (eds) Translocal Lives in Times of Conflict. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-25426-9
21
THURSDAY, NOV 5
Week 5: Interviewing Under Fire: Conducting Fieldwork in Violent Contexts
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Readings:
– Schulz, P . 2021. “Recognizing research participants’ fluid positionalities in (post-)conflict zones.
” Qualitative Research, 21(4), 600–618. Martin de Almagro et al. 2024. “Doing Feminist Research on Conflict, Violence and Peace: Ethical and Methodological Dilemmas”.
THURSDAY, NOV 12
Week 6: Humanitarianism, Data, and the Politics of Evidence
Themes
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Readings:
– Squire, V. & Alozie, M. 2023. Coloniality and frictions: Data-driven humanitarianism in North-Eastern Nigeria and South Sudan.
– Nandi, Sarah, 2026. Making Gender-Based Violence Count: Objectivity, Expertise, and Humanitarian Data Collection in the Refugee Regime.
THURSDAY, NOV 19
Week 7: Preparing for Fieldwork and Managing Power Dynamics in the Field
Themes
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Readings:
– Krause, J. 2021. The Ethics of Ethnographic Methods in Conflict Zones. Journal of Peace Research. Jansen et al 2025.Real ethics has dirty feet: data collector perspectives on risk exposure during data collection in conflict-affected Eastern DRC. Conflict and Health . 2025 Apr 1; 19:21. doi: 10.1186/s13031-025-00658-0
THURSDAY, NOV 26
Week 8: Digital Methods, Security, and Research Risk
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Readings:
– Guntrum et al. 2023. Using digitally mediated methods in sensitive contexts: a threat analysis and critical reflection on data security, privacy, and ethical concerns in the case of Afghanistan. Chonka, Ali & Stuvøy, 2022. Eyes on the ground and eyes in the sky: Security narratives, participatory visual methods and knowledge production in danger zones.
THURSDAY, DEC 3
Week 9: Feminists, Participatory and Community-Centered Research
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Readings:
– Lokot, Hartman & Hashmi, 2023. Participatory approaches and methods in gender equality and gender-based violence research with refugees and internally displaced populations: a scoping review.
Lykes, Bianco & Távara 2021. Contributions and limitations of diverse qualitative methods to feminist participatory and action research with women in the wake of gross violations of human rights.
THURSDAY, DEC 10
Week 10: Writing Conflict, Representation, and Decolonial Research Futures
Themes
Hosted on Zoom
Suggested Readings:
– Teresa Macías, 2016. Between Violence and Its Representation: Ethics, Archival Research, and the Politics of Knowledge Production in the Telling of Torture Stories. Kaur, Kipins, Costa & Lombard 2022. Identity, Violence, and the Uncomfortable Necessity of Categorization.
Certificates of Satisfactory Completion
Participants who attend 8 out of 10 complete seminar sessions are eligible to receive a Certificate of Satisfactory Completion signed by the Dean of The New School for Social Research.