(SAGE Publications Ltd, 2024-05-08) Asiimwe, Stedia; Namuggala, Victoria F.
Sensitive security government agencies present unique contexts and challenges for researchers. Entry into such spaces and fruitful engagement with participants demand particular research methodologies. In this piece we describe steps critical for navigating sensitive field sites by drawing on a multi-method qualitative approach that employed interviews, focus group discussions, and observations to study a police barracks in Uganda. Our overall goal is to guide readers on how to navigate contentious ethical research issues as well as challenges that might be encountered. We argue that researching sensitive security entities requires decolonial approaches that shift beyond traditional steps for conducting research to appreciating unique study-site contexts. Researchers further ought to understand the entity under study—its structure and mode of operation.
