Secrecy and Methods in Empirical Research
How can researchers navigate secrecy in their fieldwork, when they encounter confidential material, closed-off quarters or bureaucratic rebuffs? This is a particular challenge for researchers in the security field, which is by nature secretive and difficult to access, but pertains to a broader range of field sites whereby confidentiality, trust and research ethics are key. During the master class we will explore a variety of physical and digital ‘field sites’ and discuss methods for gaining access, dilemmas regarding critique and research ethics.
Speaker: Esmé Bosma is a Senior Consultant at Deloitte’s Financial Crime Advisory practice in the Netherlands. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam. As part of the research project FOLLOW, which was funded by the European Research Council (ERC), she has conducted fieldwork in the banking sector to analyse counter-terrorist financing efforts by banks in practice. Her work is situated at the intersection of Critical Security Studies, International Relations and Science & Technology Studies. She is co-editor of Secrecy and Methods in Security Research. A Guide to Qualitative Fieldwork (Routledge, 2020).