One of the most common concerns about conducting fieldwork in violent settings is the danger of re-traumatizing someone (e.g. via survey, interviews about harm). Does anyone know of any studies that actually tries to measure this risk? Or the magnitude/duration of the harm done?
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I looked at this prepping for my PhD ethics board and was surprised. There's not much out there, results vary...but a good deal seems to indicate it might actually do more good than harm to get the chance to speak about trauma with a third party
Which might explain why most of my subjects seem to want to talk about the worst things that have happened (torture, rape and so on). They bring it up, while I'm still fumbling around trying to figuring out the most sensitive way to broach these topics.