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Research principles and research experiences: critical reflection on conducting a PhD dissertation on global health and disability

CLEAVER, Shaun
MAGALHAES, Lilian
BOND, Virginia
POLATAJKO, Helene
NIXON, Stephanie
2016

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This article is a presentation of insights gained through critical reflection on the experience of doctoral dissertation research on disability in Western Zambia. The framework guiding this critical reflection is the Principles for Global Health Research released by the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR) in 2015. These six interrelated principles were developed in order to inform and foster research that better and more explicitly addresses health inequities. The principles are: humility, responsiveness to the causes of inequities, commitment to the future, inclusion, authentic partnering, and shared benefits. Critical reflection on the dissertation fieldwork raises the challenges of fulfilling each of the principles. Additionally, the structural power from a researcher in a position of relative privilege, as well as institutional power through the doctoral researcher’s academic program, was apparent. The exercise of power enabled certain possibilities for action by the researcher and the participants with disabilities while constraining others. The insights generated inform the next steps for this project in Western Zambia and considerations for current and prospective doctoral student researchers.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 2

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