From Scientific Research to Action in Southern Kivu: Ethical Dilemmas and Practical Challenges

Abstract

During field research, agricultural scientists and social scientists face different challenges. Whether you are an agronomist, whose main job involves taking soil samples or setting up test fields or a social scientist, whose main working tool consists of participant observation and interviews, contact and interaction with local populations is always crucial. For scientists, for example, such contacts take place when the population assesses field trials set up by the researcher or their engineers or, more simply, when researchers have to ask the permission of farmers to take samples of their soil or plants. Researchers in social sciences derive their research data from the very interaction with the research population in which they carry out their study. I would describe my own position as being somewhere in the middle. Albeit anchored in my work as an agronomist, I use social science tools to better grasp the decision-taking mechanisms that local farmers employ in their agricultural activities, and to capture their strategies and practical adaptations to the challenges imposed by their environment.