Adapting to disruption: development research and the Covid-19 pandemic
Wednesday 22nd July, 10:00 – 13:00
You are warmly invited to attend this Zoom webinar ‘Adapting to disruption: development research and the Covid-19 pandemic’, organised by the South East Network for Social Sciences (SeNSS).
Considering how to adapt research plans in the shadow of a global pandemic is certainly a daunting task. We are reminded how these are exceptional circumstances yet adapting research to disruption – be it due to conflict, public health emergency, natural hazard or personal circumstances – is not such a novel challenge.
In this webinar we bring together speakers who can share experiences aimed to encourage others in the process of adapting their research in light of the disruption caused by COVID-19. This webinar is principally aimed for doctoral researchers of development studies, however its relevance certainly extends beyond this group and we welcome all who are interested to join.
Current confirmed guests include:
Teresa Armijos is lecturer in Natural Resources and International Development at the University of East Anglia. Teresa carries out innovative participatory and action research with communities affected by disaster and conflict. In light of the current situation Teresa is actively adapting her forms of engagement with the communities she works with, giving particular consideration given to the ethical dimensions of this process.
Jennifer Cole is a research fellow in the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway. Jennifer’s research directly focuses on pandemics and infectious disease risk, often utilising ‘nethnography’ methodology in place of face-to-face data collection approaches. This looks to digital social spaces to explore how people communicate during a public health emergency as a means of understanding lived experience.
Jonah Lipton is an anthropologist and post-doctoral researcher based at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa at the LSE. In 2014, Jonah was in Sierra Leone undertaking doctoral fieldwork on youth, family life, and informal economies in an urban neighbourhood when the Ebola epidemic hit. After a six-month hiatus in the UK, he was able to return to his research site in Sierra Leone with a slightly adapted project, gaining an intimate perspective on everyday life in a crisis.
If you would like to join with this webinar then please email [email protected], and you will receive a Zoom link closer to the date of the session.