‘Don’t say “research”’: reducing bidirectional risk in Kibera slum

Kenya’s 2007 presidential elections led to what was widely termed ‘ethnic violence’, resulting in over 1000 deaths and 600,000 displacements. Kibera slum, in the country’s capital, is home to the opposition leader’s stronghold and was at the conflict’s epicentre. Conducting fieldwork in Kibera a decade later and months before the 2017 presidential election presented a multitude of methodological risks to both the research team and the Kibera community. This article explores what I call ‘bidirectional risks’ – risks to both research team and research participants – that were encountered and how these risks were minimised using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies including a household survey, engaged ethnography and community research collaboration. These strategies increased the safety of both the research team and participants, allowed the research team to collect sensitive data and suggested possibilities for further democratising the anthropological research process.