Dr Delphine Manetta, IFRA-Nigeria's Deputy Director, and Dr Pauline Guinard, IFRA-Nigeria's Director, are convening the panel “Ethics in Research Practices Through the Prism of Nigerian Studies” at the next European Conference of African Studies (ECAS 2027), to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 June to 3 July 2027.
This panel examines ethics in research practices in the humanities and social sciences through the lens of Nigerian Studies. It explores the stakes and limits of research conducted “with” or “for” people and communities in Nigeria and across its diasporas, approaching ethics as integral to the research process. Please find the full panel description below.
The deadline for submission is 4 January 2027.
Proposals should be submitted via the conference website at the following address: https://www.ecasconference.org/2027
The selected papers will be developed into a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal following the panel.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Delphine Manetta
Pauline Guinard
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PANEL DESCRIPTION
This panel examines ethics in research practices in the humanities and social sciences through the lens of Nigerian studies. On the one hand, domination and decoloniality are simultaneously research objects, epistemic positions, and critical categories that invite us to consider ethics in relation to asymmetries specific to the Nigerian groups and societies under study, as well as to those that exist between Western and Nigerian researchers and institutions. On the other hand, Nigeria and its diasporas are themselves shaped by hierarchies rooted in the histories and trajectories of individuals and groups, which fieldwork can bring to light through ethnographic experience.
Nigerian studies, understood in both theoretical and empirical terms, thus illustrate the necessary shift from research conducted “on” to research conducted “with”, and potentially even “for”. This panel explores the effects, stakes, and limits of this shift, bringing together contributions grounded in concrete research experiences in Nigeria or among its diasporas. It invites reflection on how researchers approach ethics not merely as an institutional protocol or a peripheral aspect of research, but as a process inherent to the research endeavour—one that requires attention to and critical reflection on: the power relations that shape fieldwork relationships; the researcher’s positionality and reflexivity; the role of interlocutors, research assistants, translators, intermediaries, and Nigerian colleagues in defining research objects, categories, and analyses; and the development of methods for sharing knowledge that go beyond mere restitution and instead open up possibilities for extending the research through critical engagement