Merouan Mekouar, Associate Professor of International Development Studies in the Department of Social Science at 91ŃÇÉ«, has co-edited a book entitled Doing Research as a Native: A Guide for Fieldwork in Illiberal and Repressive States. The book contains the stories and experiences of 19 scholars from 15 different countries who completed fieldwork in their repressive and/or illiberal countries. The authors give advice to researchers and/or academics who may be in a similar situation. The book was published by Oxford University Press.

“Many publications have examined the challenges faced by Western academics conducting research in repressive or illiberal countries. However, there is a significant gap in the literature regarding the unique obstacles encountered by native academics,” says Mekouar. “Although native researchers experience many of the challenges highlighted in existing research, such as surveillance, personal safety concerns, data security issues, and ethical dilemmas, they also face distinct additional risks and obstacles that have been consistently overlooked in the existing literature. Some of these challenges include the weight of family history, race, and gender, governmental pressure on friends and family, retribution from local authorities, lopsided relationships with Western colleagues and exploitation by local and foreign intelligence services.

The book addresses this critical gap in the literature and provides practical guidance for academics planning to conduct fieldwork in their native non-democratic states. My colleague Kira Jumet and I hope that the guide section we authored will help graduate students, early-career researchers, and established scholars develop practical coping strategies before and during their fieldwork.”

Merouan Mekouar has a PhD in Political Science from McGill University and is an Associate Professor of International Development Studies in the Department of Social Science within the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at 91ŃÇÉ«. His writing focuses on movements, authoritarianism and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa and more recently has expanded his scholarship to include critical fieldwork methodologies. In addition to his newly published book, Mekouar is working on a SSHRC-funded special issue on new forms of resistance to datafication, to be published with Surveillance and Society.

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