Post by Amy Cortvriend. Amy is a PhD candidate in criminology at The University of Manchester. Her research focuses on the victimisation of refugees and asylum seekers. In particular, the project explores how experiences of victimisation shape psychological stress and coping mechanisms. This project is funded by a University of Manchester scholarship.
In border criminology, we often work with some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Those who have fled their homes and countries in extreme circumstances such as persecution and conflict. Our director Mary Bosworth and Border Criminologies member Alice Gerlach have previously discussed the fact that for us as researchers, listening to people’s stories can invoke a range of emotions from sadness to guilt, as well as amount to secondary and vicarious forms of trauma. Here, I delve specifically into the feelings of guilt and shame that I experienced while undertaking research with asylum seekers during my PhD.
Guilt and vicarious shame
My research focuses on how asylum seekers cope with their experiences from their country of origin, throughout displacement, and in their host country. One of the research methods I used was narrative interviewing to elicit life stories from the people I spoke to. One man I interviewed, Kamil, was a volunteer at the organisation where many of my interviews took place. He asked me how I was doing after our interview. He understood that I could invoke some upsetting feeling from listening to traumatic stories. He knew this because he could identify with those feelings as part of his role as a volunteer. I talked about my feelings of sadness and my guilt of having these feelings. After all, I am not the one who has experienced these traumatic events. I can only describe these feelings as a sort of vicarious survivors guilt, except I had not survived anything – I was merely born in a safe country. Kamil reassured me that these feelings were valid, that he understood I was doing my little bit to try to help others.
Feelings of guilt can often come alongside shame. Johns et al. (2003) undertook research in a post-9/11 America where there was an increase in prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent. The research found that instead of feeling nationalistic pride, Americans would feel shame towards Americans who perpetrated prejudicial acts as it violated a core American value of egalitarianism. I personally can identify with this feeling of vicarious shame towards my nationality. Indeed, it was the UK government who has influenced some of the events that have taken place in many of the countries where refugees have fled from. The UK government has also created a hostile environment, and the right-wing media justifies this by perpetuatuating xenophobic and racist rhetoric (Moore and Greenland, 2018). My feelings of shame were exacerbated during my fieldwork as I faced the raw emotion and real lives of asylum seekers who had been greatly affected by both policy and the media in the UK. Many of those I spoke to felt like the environment was hostile, both as a result of what they heard politicians say and what they saw in the media. Upon hearing their thoughts I would occasionally share my feelings of shame with volunteers at the research site, all of whom are, or had been, asylum seekers. They would tell me that the UK is not perfect but although they were frustrated with the asylum system and unwelcoming sentiment from some, they were grateful for the help they did have and were humbled by members of the public and charities who had helped welcome them when they first arrived.
Leaving the field
Some of the guilt I felt occurred when I was leaving the field. Guilt stemmed from the fact that I was getting to know the participants, taking their stories, and disappearing from their lives to go and write about them. I understand it is unlikely that my research will change anything for the people I interviewed, other than giving them the opportunity to be heard as well as a small financial contribution for offering their time to speak to me. Therefore, I felt a sense of powerlessness and wanted to do more. I spoke to other, more experienced academics and practitioners working with refugees to see how they reconciled these feelings. Some would experience these feelings, employ coping strategies but take no action. Others would take action to counter the sense of powerlessness and keep in touch with participants. I opted to combine these two approaches and maintained a relationship with participants if they wished while also prioritising my own self care. Rather than building relationships with participants over a period of up to nine months and leaving the field abruptly, I let them know they were free to contact me if they wanted. I now send information that might be useful to them such as details of scholarships, or I simply send a message to see how they are. Occasionally they get in touch with me. Kamil recently contacted me to let me know his claim was accepted and that he was settling into his new home. He thanked me for what I had done and invited me over for coffee.
Relieving guilt
When facing feelings of guilt and shame, I consistently practiced self care. I have supportive supervisors who created a ‘safe space’ to make sure my emotional health was looked after, as well as academic supervisions to ensure my academic work was on track. I cared for myself physically by eating healthily and attending the gym. Sometimes, I would take a ‘mental health day’ and go to the cinema or for a walk alone. While maintaining a reciprocal relationship with participants would help prevent guilt, looking after myself helped alleviate it.
It is important as students, researchers and practitioners to be reflexive in our work, not only so we care for those we are working with as well as ourselves, but also to reduce the impact the emotions we feel can have on our research. In this case, my emotions indicate to me that I care. While this is a good thing, it is also something that can create bias. By reflecting on researcher thoughts and feelings throughout the process, it is possible to mitigate for this and therefore increase the robustness of findings.
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How to cite this blog post (Harvard style)
Cortvriend, A. (2020). From the field: feelings of guilt and shame . Available at: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2020/04/field-feelings [date]
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