Engaging refugee women and girls as experts: co-creating evidence on sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian crises using creative, participatory methods

dc.contributor.authorPotts, Alina
dc.contributor.authorFattal, Loujine
dc.contributor.authorKolli, Harriet
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-19T19:13:08Z
dc.date.available2024-07-19T19:13:08Z
dc.date.issued2022-02-18
dc.description.abstractBackground: Humanitarian evidence is produced in settings of heightened power imbalances between research stakeholders. Yet evidence production processes often lack explicit reflection of who is shaping the questions asked and making meaning of the answers. Aims and objectives: Empowered Aid is participatory action research that seeks to mitigate sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) perpetrated by aid actors. Refugee women and girls in Uganda and Lebanon, as experts on SEA risk, are engaged co-researchers in generating evidence on how to make aid distributions safer. Methods: Diverse creative processes are utilised to co-produce knowledge about SEA risks and strategies to reduce them. These same processes are used to reflect on power dynamics within the research process itself, local gender power dynamics, and structural power dynamics between aid actors and those receiving aid. Findings: Fifty-five Syrian and South Sudanese refugee women and girl co-researchers used ethnographic methods to document their and their peers’ lived experiences of SEA risks while accessing humanitarian aid. Creative methods including drawing, drama, storytelling, community mapping, and body mapping were applied during data collection and qualitative analysis, as well as in reflection and action analysis workshops. SEA was reported across all the types of aid studied, and these findings are being used to adapt aid distribution processes. Discussion and conclusions:<br> Creative and participatory practices can address the barriers, such as illiteracy (including computer illiteracy) and lack of training, often cited as limiting researchers’ ability to share power with affected communities, and allow for greater co-production of knowledge and evidence.
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work was supported by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration under Grant number SPRMCO18CA0094.
dc.identifier.citationPotts, A., Fattal, L., & Kolli, H. (2022). Engaging refugee women and girls as experts: co-creating evidence on sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian crises using creative, participatory methods. Evidence & Policy, 18(2), 311-335. https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16420949265777
dc.identifier.issn1744-2656
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16420949265777
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42222
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherPolicy Press
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.subjectParticipatory action research
dc.subjectGender-based violence
dc.subjectFeminist research
dc.subjectRefugees
dc.titleEngaging refugee women and girls as experts: co-creating evidence on sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian crises using creative, participatory methods
dc.typeArticle

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