Article title: Researching research: The ethics of research and work with children in the Palestinian context
Authors: Imad Sayrafi and Salam Taha
Date: July, 2026
Keywords: Development, research, praxis, Palestine, children, international aid, settler colonialism.
Abstract
This paper discusses research in the Palestinian context, focusing on both research and practice linked to the development sector. This is done through centering the experiences of academics and development practitioners, analyzing experiences within academic institutions and development organizations, and how knowledge and practice are produced in these contexts. The research also focuses on how methodologies and ethical questions are constituted and how they guide work within these contexts. The article further analyzes research and community development work which focuses on Palestinian children. These various levels of analyses connect as they illuminate positions within globalized systems of power that shape knowledge production and community development practice, how they relate to each other, and the separation between them. The article also analyzes how these complexities particularly manifest in the Palestinian context, where Palestinians are faced with ongoing settler colonialism and the silencing of their narratives. The research adopts an empirical approach utilizing an action research methodology, focusing on researchers, development practitioners, and Palestinian children and adolescents, analyzing them as social actors, and as communities of practice. Whether through their positions in relation to dominant discourses, through their capacities to produce counter-discourses and practice, or through their capacities re-constitute their struggles within shifting terrains.
Funding: This article and the research were supported by University College Cork, Ireland, and implemented by the Center for Development Studies, Birzeit University, Palestine.
