How does researcher identity matter in study of online extremism? Dr. Elizabeth Pearson explores how gender, race and identity impact the mental and emotional tolls of studying extremism online for ICCT’s Perspectives.
Criminology lecturer Dr. Elizabeth Pearson has written about identity and harms, in a new Perspective for the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT). The findings are based on the REASSURE Report published in March, Online Extremism and Terrorism Researchers’ Security Safety and Resilience: Findings from the Field.
In this new Perspective for Netherlands-based international Counter-terrorism ‘think-and-do’ tank the ICCT, Elizabeth Pearson considers gender, race and identity in the question, Who’s Protecting the Researchers?
REASSURE report findings suggest researcher identity matters in the types of harms faced when studying online extremism and terrorism. This Perspective considers the silencing effects and misogyny that women can face in their research, and the emotional costs that has not just for individuals, but for collective identities.
Dr Pearson notes the importance of protective institutional responses, and university safeguarding practices, in order to enable research by the most marginalized groups, on the issues affecting them, and to further the field of terrorism studies.
The REASSURE report is produced by VOX-Pol, the online terrorism and extremism research network. Co-authors on the report are Dr. Joe Whittaker from CYTREC at Swansea University, Till Baaken from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Sara Zeiger, Farangiz Atamuradova and Professor Maura Conway of Dublin City University.
