Data and Displacement: Collaborative Research at a Time of Uncertainty

(Data and Displacement project website)

Data and Displacement: Collaborative Research at a Time of Uncertainty

Written By: Olufunto Abimbola,Abubakar Adam,Oláyínká Àkànle,Modesta Alozie,Silvia De Michelis,Ewajesu Opeyemi Okewumi,Olufunke Fayehun,Prithvi Hirani,Briony Jones,Kuyang Logo,Hajja Kaka Alhaji Mai,Leben Moro,João Porto de Albuquerque,Vicki Squire,Dallal Stevens,Grant Tregonning,Rob Trigwell,Stephanie Whitehead

Data and Displacement is a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and FCDO (UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office) funded project, working with partners in Nigeria and South Sudan. It provides crucial insights into the impacts of data-driven development on internally displaced communities in conflict situations. The project currently faces uncertainty, due to news that the UK government has decided to cut overseas development aid (ODA) funded projects. While many projects have already been informed of the considerable cuts that they face, others such as Data and Displacement await further news. Despite this, the research remains pressing. Data and Displacement considers how people ‘falling through the cracks’ of protection can be further excluded through the generation and use of large-scale data. The research provides urgent new insights into the ways that humanitarian organisations can work with local partners and with Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) themselves in order to improve knowledge about displacement-related vulnerabilities. This is crucial in order to ensure the effective distribution and use of development aid for vulnerable groups in situations of conflict.

Data and Displacement brings together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from University of Warwick (UK), University of Ibadan (Nigeria), University of Juba (South Sudan) and the International Organisation for Migration. As a research team, we remain fully committed to continuing our important work and to building equitable partnerships and advancing impactful interdisciplinary research. We are currently conducting fieldwork in northern Nigeria and South Sudan and are also fully committed to meeting the promises that we have made to the project’s research participants. The various partners involved in this project have come together on the basis of the mutual trust that has been built up over time; trust that we remain committed to protecting and enhancing further. In light of this, and given the uncertainties we are currently facing, we have decided to write a blog together in order to highlight the various pressures the current situation puts on us all, both individually and collectively, as well as to emphasise the damaging nature of the ODA cuts.

The importance of projects such as Data and Displacement

Diversity in research really matters. This is a diverse team, and a great team. It has very good representation in each country where the research takes place; it involves a genuine practitioner-researcher partnership where practitioners are included as investigators; it has gender balance (12 women and 6 men) and impressive disciplinary range. The combination of that diversity with the equitable approach to leadership that has been engaged in this project has had very positive results. Everyone brings with them very different experiences, reflecting diverse academic backgrounds (in computer science, data science, ethics, geography, international relations, law, political science and sociology) and geographical contexts (Nigeria, South Sudan, and the United Kingdom), engaging in open discussion and collective reflection about the relevance of these for the design and implementation of the research. This sort of open discussion is what will ultimately lead to the production of knowledge that is able to positively impact the lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged, critically informing the practice of those who make decisions based on data and IDPs. Multi-disciplinary and context-sensitive research of this kind is rare, and its loss would be strongly felt across academic and practitioner communities.

A particular strength of the project lies in its work in differing conflict contexts. This provides a platform for understanding how research is carried out in the different places, plus it helps to shed a light on the specific challenges of doing research in the most fragile and volatile of research contexts. As the project implementation progresses, it has become clear that the same plans and the same actions will not necessarily work in the same way for both northern Nigeria and South Sudan, hence the team has had to think of creative ways to engage with each context. This has created team learning in all directions, and we have realised that remaining flexible and understanding the challenges of each context is one of the most important aspects of successfully delivering research across the different sites.

Partnerships such as those developed by the Data and Displacement project are very important, especially for partners from less resourced countries. Oftentimes, data is produced about people in these countries, without many people from the country itself playing a significant role in the production of the data, especially in the more technical aspects of this process. To an extent, this partnership can address the inequality, by reflecting the ideas and opinions of persons from countries that usually get left out from the production and management of data. The project embeds mutual learning and the exchange of expertise within the research process, and this is valuable for all of us involved.

The Data and Displacement project, in itself, is a unique project given the cutting-edge ideas it is developing and the very innovative and strategic partnership it is building. We are proud of the partnership, which we view as excellent in all respects. It is not only technically sound but also broad-based and inclusive. Every project partner contributes different capacities, enthusiasm, perspectives and positive insights, which we are confident will ultimately advance ground-breaking conclusions and interventions. It is clear that the project is an example of best practice in the way that it is forging its research partnership, because it brings together a range of approaches and develops these in terms that build from the strengths of the team. Importantly, it also supports a group of early career researchers, who have opportunities to explore new ideas, undertake training, gain intellectual support and deepen their networks through working as part of the interdisciplinary collaboration.

Key values and strengths at risk of being undermined

The value of partnerships such as Data and Displacement is that we all learn together and from each other; we work together to find new ways of thinking about things and new ways of doing things. Such partnerships provide opportunities to exchange information, pass on expertise and carry out valuable joint works. Nevertheless, we also face significant challenges as a team. For example, some of us cannot consistently access the internet, our electricity is rationed and there are blackouts that interrupt our participation in the research process. Even as researchers familiar with such contexts, we have to learn new ways of manoeuvring the situation we find ourselves in, while all the time deepening understanding of the wider research team and the different contexts whereby the research is undertaken. In this situation, the flexibility of the research team as a whole is of paramount importance.

Data and Displacement is committed to minimising the impacts of unequal or heavily-skewed power relations, particularly where some of our partners have limited resources and face additional challenges in undertaking research in fragile contexts. However, there is always a risk that partnerships such as ours become exploitative ventures, where those of us from less resourced countries became producers of raw data and those of us from resourced countries use the data to produce knowledge with little more than an occasional thanks to the raw data producers. This risk has become even greater where COVID-19 has perpetuated unequal power relations on a global scale, rendering those of us in more fragile contexts needing additional time and support to contribute to the research process.

The central values of the Data and Displacement partnership are collective learning, the sharing of ideas and epistemic equality. We seek to develop a comprehensive and inclusive project, where each partner’s contribution is equal and valued. We have worked to dismantle power-relations, asymmetries and dichotomies that should not exist in knowledge co-production between the UK and the world. We have done this by avoiding an extractive approach to knowledge production and through ensuring the effective integration of the team through the project design and work packages.

We still have work to do, but feel that success is assured if this team spirit continues. We can achieve excellent outcomes so long as the partnership is sustained. However, the contexts within which we work raise particular challenges, as noted above. Our team has consistently engaged in the challenges involved in working together with positivity, purpose and open minds. This is a collective strength, which also represents a significant investment that renders secure and sustained research funding absolutely essential. After investing so much time in developing the partnership, we hope to see a future funding environment whereby those of us in the Global South can invite those of us from the Global North to act as Co-Investigators, rather than vice versa. This was precisely the direction of travel of the programme by which we were funded and of the raft of ODA projects facing the recent cuts. We still hold out hope that the funding environment will be underpinned by foresight and will become more equitable, rather than less so, over time.

The impact of uncertainty

For those of us outside the UK, uncertainty around our funding makes it hard to plan. This is in addition to the additional uncertainties that we face due to COVID-19. Facing the prospect of cuts is really disappointing for us as partners from less resourced countries, who have fewer options to carry out funded research. Our project aims to expose issues around the ethics of doing research, yet if the funding is terminated this important work will not proceed impacting both our incomes and careers. This leaves some of us worrying each day. The cuts are a major shock, as they create huge concerns around how much effort, positive energy and enthusiasm we should commit in the short, medium and long term given our uncertain future as members of the project team. However, we hope for the best and somehow feel that it will be okay; that reason will prevail on the need not to cut our project’s funds.

Those of us who are early career researchers suddenly face exceptional precarity. The Data and Displacement team currently includes seven early career researchers, offering valuable opportunities for us to take part in a large interdisciplinary research team, develop existing and new research skills, and to learn from experienced colleagues. With the negative effects of COVID-19 on the higher education job market it is not an easy time to be facing uncertainty over whether or not our positions will continue. The entire team benefits hugely from the energy and insights of our early career researchers, whom the project remains committed to supporting.

For those of us in the UK managing other projects already effected by these cuts, we have found ourselves treading a fine line between being transparent and not wanting to worry people. Trying to shield partners from what we have been fearing might come, but which we are determined to avoid, has been hard. Worse still has been dread at the thought of what would happen to those employed by our partners if the funding dropped away, knowing that jobs in those countries are less easy to come by and recognising the extreme stress this has placed on partners. They aren’t just partners, they are people: our colleagues and friends. It is people that these cuts affect, whether it is those carrying out the research or those benefiting from it. Added to that of course is the huge disappointment at the missed opportunities in research that the ODA cuts represent and the irreconcilable damage this is doing to our future ability to form partnerships. We feel ashamed that the British government has taken this decision.

About the Project:

Data and Displacement addresses the practical and ethical questions arising from the increase of data-driven practices of humanitarian protection. It undertakes the urgent task of assessing the production and use of large-scale data, focusing on the impact these have on internally displaced persons (IDPs) in two conflict situations: northern Nigeria and South Sudan. The project advances understanding of the operational and ethical challenges of data-driven humanitarian targeting, while also contributing practical and methodological insights surrounding digital humanitarianism and participatory research. The project involves a large team of researchers from Nigeria, South Sudan and the UK, the full details of which can be found here.

Mouzayian Khalil : 27 Apr 2021 13:18 |  Tags: Migration Collaborative Research Data And Displacement Oda Cuts |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Mis–/disinformation, social media censorship, and divided societies

Written by Dr Phillip Nelson

"Modern Communication 02" by ChrisM70 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The rise of social media and the echo chambers created by computer algorithms are directly contributing to polarisation and divided societies, in which hard-line views are lauded and compromise is not considered. When confronted with opinions from an outside group, the proponent is labelled a ‘fascist’, ‘left-wing liberal elite’, or ‘woke-<<insert insult>>’. This division can even lead to violence, as seen recently in the US where insurrection was fuelled by social media. All countries may soon see similar shifts toward polarisation, as connectivity rises around the globe.

The issue of divided societies goes hand in hand with the spread of mis-/disinformation online. Misinformation is the unwitting spread of fake news, whereas disinformation is the deliberate spreading of fake news. Several forces, including nation states, have been accused of amplifying extreme voices to shift public opinion. While the deliberate spread of disinformation in this regard may be alarming, it is only a small element of the general shift toward division caused by the rise of social media. Curating or censoring information on social mediais one of the main solutions proffered by civil society commentators to fight mis-/disinformation. A similar suggestion is to train the population through schools in methods of questioning and detecting falsehoods. Consequently, we would weed out the lies and extreme opinions before they can sow the seeds of division. But, I believe, this isn’t going to work.

Indeed, the recent barring of Donald Trump from social media has led many to question whether private companies should have the right to police public platforms. Should US CEOs get to decide what’s in the public interest, not just at home in the US, but also abroad? Societies could end up pushing some views into the dark web, where we would have even less understanding of their reach and motivations. While these concerns are valid, I don’t consider that they get to the real problem –truth itself.

I believe we need to acknowledge as a species – yes, every human around the world – that there is no one truth or factual version of an event/phenomenon. Indeed, it is impossible to present any information without bias – the knowledge and experiences that make us who we are, also shape our interpretation of the world around us. This premise is not new; in fact, much social science research is based on this very premise – ontological relativism. As one definition states:

“The reasonable case for relativism would simply state that since we can only ever consider the existence of ‘the real’ through a specific discourse and that the way human beings have viewed reality has undergone significant changes, then we should not place too much faith in the currently fashionable forms of imagining reality. As Foucault argued, how can we have a history of truth if truth has its own history” (The SAGE Dictionary of Social Research Methods).

This is not to say that stock should be placed in every statement. For example, someone could say that the COVID vaccine will make you grow an extra leg. While I could never say that this is 100% false – because I could never know truth – I can be 99.99 recurring-percent sure that the statement is false. My job is to convince my counterpart of this belief. In order to do this, I must find a way to allay their fear, be it through reasoned or emotive argument. What I should never do, is dismiss the claim out of hand, or label the proponent with any kind of normative term, such as ‘crazy’. Most likely, their assertion is an expression born of legitimate concern for the welfare of themselves and others.

Thus, curating online content is an interesting suggestion, but inevitably a fruitless one. After all, who would do this curating? I don’t believe anyone could do it without bias. Even a computer algorithm would be biased by the ‘truthful’ information it was fed by its biased human programmers. We could teach it to emotionlessly determine fact from fiction, but the tools we would give it to do so would be determined by our own conception of what is and is not likely to be true.

To overcome division in our societies, then, we must first accept that everything in life is shaded in grey and everyone will have their own interpretation of events. For example, one could hold up the low death rate from COVID-19 in New Zealand as a shining example of how to deal with a pandemic. At first, the facts could present a solution as clear as day. But, then consider that, here in the UK, our close economic ties with neighbouring Europe and global connections mean that over 140M people enter the country each year. In New Zealand this figure is only 7M (3M returning homeand 4M tourists). The UK was clearly at greater risk. So, what was once clear as day, is now a little grey. So it is with every ‘fact’.

Once we accept that everything is a little grey, I believe we can move on to engage with our adversaries in a much more productive way, and we will be able to come together as never before, in open, tolerant discussion – no more shouting into the void. Conflict isn’t a bad thing. We just need to find ways to channel conflict into productive discussion and action.

The best way to do this is by trying to understand mis- and disinformation, its sources and mouthpieces: why are individuals and groups interested in spreading it in the first place and why are people interested in listening? Often, this will mean fathoming what fear or concern it speaks to, why that concern exists, and what can be done to alleviate it. All of this must be done without judgement of the individual. If we can do this, then division will become inclusion.

Faced with increasingly divided societies, it may seem easier now to pick a side and hunker down. But, I believe we must do the exact opposite. We must come out of our silos, our trenches, and our echo chambers. We must accept that the world of truth is a multitude of viewpoints, and each individual has the right to hold their own. It is upon youto convince themthat your view is better.

Phillip Nelson is a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. He holds an MA in Economics and International Relations from the University of St Andrews and an MSocSci in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University, Sweden. He was awarded his PhD in international relations from the University of Essex in 2019 for his thesis on individual and group motivations for participation in civil conflict, and has so far published work in the journal of Defence and Peace Economics.

Mouzayian Khalil : 24 Mar 2021 10:07 |  Tags: Censorship Divided Societies Fake News Social Media |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Let us Talk about Young Men and their Participation in the Niger Delta Violence

Pollution in the Niger Delta (courtesy: Stakeholder Development Network SDN)

Written by Dr Modesta Alozie

Anjo limped as he walks towards me for an interview, I wondered what had happened to his leg. He had been shot in 2003 in Bayelsa during a violent clash between the military and the local youths, many of whom were men. For months, local youths sabotaged oil pipelines in the region and kidnapped oil company staff for ransom, which led the federal government to send in the military to repress dissidents. Although the National Youth Policy (2019) says the age range of youth in Nigeria as 18-29 years, it is not unusual in the Niger delta to find people as old as 45 years old identify as youths. This is because youth, in this context, is mainly a site of marginalisation and contestation rather than an age category.

The violence was not only happening in Bayelsa but across the other eight states of the Niger delta where Nigeria’s oil production takes place, with a huge consequence for the development of the region. Thousands of people have died and thousands have been displaced. Properties have been destroyed, and between 2007-2008, Nigeria’s oil production decreased by 40%. In a country where 88% of the government earning comes from oil, the economic effect of this violence cannot be understated. Peace was eventually restored in 2009 after the government introduced the Amnesty Programme which promised monthly stipends to the youths if they dropped their arms. But sporadic violence still occurs.

Because Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil exporter, the violence in the Niger delta has huge implications for global oil supply. As such, there is serious interest from academics as well as the media to explain this violence. Economists like Paul Collier tell us that what fuels this violence is greed by young men, and in the media, these young men have been labelled as criminals. Blaming young men for this violence leads to the stigmatisation of young people in the society and obscures the role of the state as well as the oil companies in creating the inequalities that fuel this violence in the first place.

In my doctoral research, I sought to explain this violence from the perspectives of these young men. I spoke with these young men and observed their social environment to understand how their identity as men influence their violent behaviour. Many of the youths I spoke to blame the government and the oil companies, who are in a joint business arrangement with the federal government, for this violence. When Nigeria’s oil revenue surged in the 1970s, the federal government introduced new economic and political structures to monopolise control over oil proceeds. First, a Federation Account was created into which all oil revenues are channelled to be shared subsequently across all the states in the country. Then, the Derivation Principle which regulates the proportion of internally generated revenue to be retained by any state was slashed from 50% to 3% in the 1980s. At the moment, the oil communities retain 13% of the oil profits generated within their region as specified by the Derivation Principle and population size is considered the most important criteria for sharing the revenue collected by the federal government. As such, the majority ethnic groups, especially the Hausa Northerners, have received the largest chunk of the oil proceeds due to their large number. The oil communities see this as distributive injustice. There is a perception amongst the oil communities that their ethnic minority status makes it difficult for them to negotiate a better revenue-sharing arrangement at the federal government level.

Corrupt practices by local politicians and harmful corporate practices by the oil companies further compound the problems of the oil communities. A large chunk of the funds which could have been invested in development projects, such as employment creation is diverted into private pockets, and so the level of unemployment in the region is very high. For decades, oil spills have occurred frequently in the Niger delta often without remediation and compensation to the oil communities. Between 1976-2001, 7000 oil spill incidents occurred in the Niger delta and every year, 240,000 barrels of oil are spilt in the Niger region. This is the highest rate of oil spills recorded anywhere in the world leading the BBC to name the Niger delta ‘the world oil pollution capital’.

Oil spills in the Niger delta occur mainly from operational failures or pipeline vandalisation by youths. By law, the local communities are supposed to be compensated by the oil firms when an oil spill happens due to operational failures. However, compensation rarely happens because the Joint Investigation process (JIV) which is used to determine the cause of an oil spill is seriously flawed. The oil companies provide the equipment and finances required for the JIV, which leaves little room for accountability and transparency in the process. As such, the oil communities believe that most oil spill data from the JIV is unreliable.

In many instances when local residents have gone to the court to challenge the outcome of the JIV, they have been unsuccessful, although a recent court case in which four local farmers won an oil spill case against Shell in a Dutch court brings some glimmer of hope. Because rural livelihood in the Niger Delta is predominantly fishing and farming, local people have watched their future drain away with oil and concern for health continues to rise. It is within this context of exclusion and pollution that young men like Anjo are challenging the oil companies and the institutional structures which they believe do not serve them.

My research found that while women also experience the economic exclusion resulting from oil exploration, men are disproportionately affected by the social consequences of this economic exclusion. Also, some traditional ideas of manhood encourage violent behaviour amongst Ijaw men. Egbesu, the Ijaw god of war commands young men to rise as men and protect their communities against any external danger and injustice. This cultural context normalises violence to a certain extent and many young men who are socialised in this context see the enactment violence as merely a habitualised way of being a male member of the Ijaw community.

Young men in the Niger Delta are expected to provide for their households as well as to marry, but in the Niger Delta, marriage is a long and elaborate process requiring large sums of cash. Without getting married, many young men remain in limbo as junior men and they are not able to participate meaningfully in local community life. Many young men I spoke to saw marriage and the provider role as essential to who they are as men. They explain how unemployment undermines their ability to perform these roles as well as how violence enables them to meet these social roles.

During my interview with Anjo, he explained that before joining violent militancy, he had no money to pay his children’s school fees and to feed his family as a man, which led to regular insults from his wife. After joining one of the well-known militant gangs in the region, Anjo’s economic situation improved significantly. He and his peers were paid hugely by the oil companies to protect oil territories. Consequently, Anjo received enough money to provide for both his immediate as well as extended family.

Many Ijaw men I spoke to justified violence as a normal way of being a good man in the Ijaw community and in a context characterised by injustice. The dependence on Ijaw men’s strength for community protection shifts the responsibility of resistance against military repression and exclusion on young men, who then use violence to resist an equally violent state.

While many unemployed men struggled to become providers and to marry, I observed in the night clubs and in wedding ceremonies that violent men lived a different life. In the clubs, women wanted them for their cash, and in the wedding ceremonies they were invited as ‘Chairmen’, an honourable Nigerian title almost exclusively reserved for older rich men. In this context of exclusion, violence offered young men an opportunity to insert themselves into the mainstream social and economic life, albeit through the back door.

Since young men are the main perpetrators and victims of this violence, addressing this violence and achieving inclusive development in the Niger delta requires that intervention strategies meet the diverse needs of young men (and women) many of whom live at the margins of the oil communities. Finally, it is time to move towards a society where men are humanised and manhood is not linked with violence.

Author Bio

Dr Modesta Alozie is the Lead Research Fellow on the Data and Displacement Project at the Department of Politics and International Relations University of Warwick, UK. She holds a PhD in Development Planning from University College London. Before joining Warwick, Modesta worked as a research consultant at the Urban Institute University of Sheffield in the LO-ACT low carbon project. Her research has focused on climate change and analysing the complex impacts of oil extraction in Nigeria from an intersectional perspective. Recently, her research has expanded geographically beyond Nigeria to include South Sudan focusing on the experiences of internally displaced people in these two contexts.

Mouzayian Khalil : 26 Feb 2021 11:27 |  Tags: Conflict Displacement Gender Inclusion Niger Delta Youth Violence |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem