Re-ordering ethics and knowledge production in conflict and disaster affected contexts

Global order at multiple levels is shaped by policies, actions, and knowledge that are underpinned by data of various types. What data is collected, who collects it and how, and the knowledge produced are thus foundational components of order and decision making. In moments of visible disorder, such as conflict and disaster (C&D) contexts, data collection can be frequent and intense. International actors tend to shape these processes, which is based on colonial epistemologies, where Global Northern (GN) approaches to data collection and `ways of knowing¿ dominate. This process has profound social, cultural, and political implications because data collection and analysis generate knowledge for immediate crisisresponse and longer-term governance. In that sense, collecting and analysing data during a crisis provides moments of re-ordering, imbuing knowledge-producers with significant power. The mostly-invisible `what¿,`who¿, and `how¿ of data collection and knowledge production therefore require deeper scrutiny.Our project will foster discussions on these issues in C&D contexts among Global South (GS) and GN research actors, responding aid agencies, and policy makers. The aims are to better understand the ways in which data is gathered and turned into knowledge, to support ethical decision-making during fieldwork, and to work towards decolonising C&D knowledge production processes. Thus, our overarching research question asks how are ethics and knowledge production ordered in conflict and disaster settings?Our investigation is framed around three key questions:1) How are data for conflict and disaster responses collected, and by whom?a) What are the local, socio-political, institutional and cultural realities that shape the meaning of ethics?b) How are ethics considered in planning and implemented in practice?2) How does the data collection process impact on knowledge production?a) What data, perspectives, and knowledge(s) are excluded in the production process?3) How does that knowledge production structure the global (C&D crisis response) order?