Collaborative qualitative research on suicide and self-harm in South Asia: a reflection on challenges and solutions

Trust is essential to planning and delivering impactful international research that is culturally appropriate and has the potential to change practice and policy on local levels. However, details on how this is can be achieved, and a discussion of challenges encountered are often lacking. A better understanding of building and maintaining of trust in North-South research partnerships is essential, especially when tackling complex and sensitive issues such as self harm and suicide. Suicide is amongst the leading causes of death in South Asia.

This talk will reflect on experiences in the South Asia Self-Harm Initiative (SASHI), a global-challenges funded research project, led by co-investigators from the Global North and South. The research collects empirical evidence to inform the understanding of the nature of self-harm in the context of profound social, political and economic challenges in the global South as well as builds research capacity. We draw on Ben-Ari and Enosh’s work (2010), which focuses on identifying incongruities that challenge our knowledge (discovery) and examine them in-depth as a source of new knowledge (construction) to come to a new understanding. The definition of trust is debated, and our starting point is Luhmann’s (1999) approach that trust is expressed through social action in contexts we cannot fully know.

We argue that trust is a building block for fair and equitable international research partnerships and is continually developed and negotiated in relationships and activities. Power inequalities and contextual factors need to be acknowledged. Working on building and maintaining trust is emotionally and cognitively challenging. Our experiences suggest that building and maintaining trust relies on recognising similarities, which can foster respect and equality of status. Acknowledging and exploring differences can provide opportunities for reflection and joint learning. These issues are important to consider as they ultimately shape knowledge production and translation.