The period between February and August 2025 marked the conduct and completion of the empirical research for my PhD project, which examines the role of bilateral development finance institutions in the protection against human rights violations in land-based investments with displacements effects in Sub-Saharan Africa. The research comprised field work on two development projects: the NFC forestry projects in Uganda and the Lake Turkana windpower project in Kenya. During this period, I collected data from a diverse set of participants including the local communities, government officers and experts (academic and non-academic) through semi structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGD), with the latter primarily conducted with the local communities within the project areas.
Throughout this process, I continually reflected on the concept of “localizing human rights,” a course that Prof. Koen De Feyter not only deeply believed in, but also actively contributed to shaping. My experience highlighted the significant role of contextualized socio-legal empirical research training for researchers, as well as the importance of establishing strong partnerships with local universities in human rights research. I would like to briefly discuss this concept before sharing my reflections on the role of researchers like myself in advancing the concept of localization of human rights.
Localizing human rights in a nutshell
According to Prof. Koen, human rights violations arise from events that ‘take place somewhere, in a specific geographical location.’[1] He posits that with increased economic globalization, decisions that may have adverse cross-border impacts on people and most of which are made with no participation of those most impacted, the ‘…interpretation and elaboration of human rights norms’ should even more so start at the local level.[2] He also asserts that since human rights claims arise at the local site, it is at this point that those whose rights have been violated, or threated to be violated, develop ‘a first line of defense’.[3] This defense may include using existing human rights to seek protection locally using the available mechanisms. Whether successful or not, these efforts, and the lessons learnt from them, ultimately contribute to knowledge creation that is essential for the further development of human rights.[4] The various regional human rights systems in Africa, Americas and Europe demonstrate how a plurality of human rights frameworks enables the interpretation and application of global human rights norms in ways that protect people across different societal settings.[5]
To actualize this course, he identifies four actors that play a crucial role in the process of human rights localization. These include community-based organizations (CBOs) often geographically located where the human rights abuses are happening.[6] These CBOs help in articulating the needs of the members. Since not all CBOs focus on human rights, the second actor, namely the local human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may assist in incorporating human rights perspectives and developing strategies to respond to their struggles.[7] These local NGOs may then become a link between the local CBOs’ human rights concerns and international human rights NGOs.[8] This link is particularly crucial where the domestic space restricts the work local NGOs do and for the ability of international NGOs to influence global regulatory processes.[9] Transnational advocacy networks comprising various actors, ranging from social movements, advocacy and research organizations, academics, the church, and the media to parts of government such as the executive or parliament, forms the fourth actor in this context.[10] Fuelled by shared values, these actors collaborate and, through information exchange, campaigns, and mobilization, work to promote compliance with human rights norms.[11] All these actors contribute to linking local human rights experiences to global human rights norms and with that promote further development in the human rights space. Their true impact, however, depends on the relationships among them and the extent to which local experiences inform their work through a bottom-up approach.[12]
What role for academic researchers?
Researchers specializing on various human rights issues may contribute to the work of these actors by providing expertise, either at the individual or institutional level. Institutionally, academic communities, including institutions, scholars and researchers, broadly contribute to human rights through trainings and knowledge creation.[13] Academic institutions may form partnerships where researchers interact with various actors, including NGOs at different levels, for example, in formative, and production and dissemination stages.[14] These relationships with local CBOs and NGOs can lead to mutual benefits, where so-called action researchers get support in accessing participants, facilitating data collection and disseminating findings, while NGOs gain research findings that support their interventions within their focus areas.[15]
At the individual level, researchers may volunteer or become members of the various CBOs and NGOs and offer their expertise and research skills to advance the advocacy and support to the local communities. In my research area, for example, according to their website, Friends of Lake Turkana, a local human rights NGO focusing on northern Kenya has a volunteership program.[16] Similarly, the Kenya Land Alliance (KLA), a group of civil society actors that has played a crucial role in advocating for land reforms and land rights of vulnerable groups in Kenya, has various membership categories including academics.[17] As a member of KLA myself, I can contribute to the ongoing work with my expertise in their areas of focus.
The following figure that was developed in the context of international development illustrates how collaboration between academic institutions, researchers in their own capacity and NGOs may look like.[18]
Source: Academic-NGO collaboration in international development research (Figure 1 NGO-Academic interface, p.4)
However, researchers should also be aware of possible challenges in academia-practitioners’ relationships. According to Roper, for a successful collaboration between NGOs and academics, there is need for clarity from the onset on the goals and understanding of each others’ interests and intended outcomes.[19] This will reduce possible friction that may arise given that generally these actors work from different starting points: NGOs tend to be action-oriented and focused on specific situations, while academic work may be theoretical, conceptual or action-oriented research.[20]
What support can the university offer?
In one publication Leaving No One behind in Human Rights Research, Prof. Koen focuses on the experience the research team he led had in the various research projects including on the right to education as well as water and sanitation in partnership between the University of Antwerp’s Law and Development Research Group and various universities in China, DRC and India.[21] In this writing, Prof. Koen focuses on the marginalized groups as ‘co-creators of knowledge’ in the research and how their views and experiences are crucial in interpreting and applying human rights norms.[22]
Beyond the marginalized groups forming an active part of the research and human rights work, Prof. Koen also reflected critically on different aspects around the researcher: the researchers’ relationship to the group being researched, the social status of the researchers, their nationality/country of origin and their selection of the study site and its implications on the research outcomes as well as the ethical considerations including transparency on any benefits to the participants without creating high expectations.[23] As an example, he noted how one researcher in Bas-Congo (DRC) was “perceived as a foreigner in their home country” because, although they understood the local language, they came from a different region.[24] This highlights the implication of a researcher’s personal and social identity on the participants’ perception and the research process as whole.
My experience in recruiting and training research assistants and obtaining community entry to meetings and/or contact with participants in Uganda and Kenya strongly resonate with Prof. Koen’s reflections particularly on researcher – community interaction and relationships In both countries, my relationship and that of the research assistants with the local communities, my nationality (particularly in Uganda), my identity as the principal researcher and community expectations on the benefits of the research all shaped the perceptions of the communities on the study. The process required the ability to understand the local research dynamics and engage ethically with participants including being transparent about the nature of the research and the fact that its benefits are not immediate. Notably, my affiliation with the local university was instrumental as it enhanced community trust even as I navigated my multiple identities vis-à-vis the researched in both countries.
In concluding that mentioned writing, Prof Koen noted:
“Interdisciplinary human rights research that focuses on collecting the knowledge of marginalized groups and values that knowledge as a source of human rights law and policy also challenges universities as workplaces where the research is carried out.”[25]
I was intrigued by Koen’s concluding note above and would like to highlight how universities, as workplaces for research, should provide better support to researchers like myself, who conduct research in their home countries or regions. Much like the researcher in Bas-Congo in Prof. Koen’s reflection, I experienced the perception of “an outsider” in my own home, Kenya.
Briefly on my background, although a Kenyan national fluent in Kiswahili, a widely spoken language in the country, my study site was in a different region, predominantly inhabited by pastoral communities. Being from a different region and community, altogether, this became the first factor that distinguished me from my study population. Secondly, although I studied in Kenya to postgraduate diploma level and pursued my masters in Tanzania, my current PhD research position is located at a Belgian institution, which introduces an additional layer of diaspora identity that double distances me from local communities whose displacement-related concerns I study.
Some scholars in the field of social sciences have published on the need to consider the complexities involved in knowledge creation particularly through empirical research in the Global South. Abasli, El Assal and Hafez note that there seems to be a presumption within Western social science departments that generally researchers from developing countries are already prepared to face and manoeuvre any challenges and uncertainties in the field. As a result, research trainings are mainly designed to prepare Western researchers for empirical research endeavours in developing countries.[26] Giwa, Adu-Ampong and Adams note that current research training does not recognize that, apart from aspects such as race, class, ethnicity, political, cultural and religious beliefs, researchers from the Global South and based in Western institutions have additional identities that diminish the outsiders/insiders distinction. Yet, this positionality often leaves them in an in-between space depending on the context, participants and research topic.[27] The circumstances are not any better for Global South researchers conducting field work in the Global North as they also face identity challenges, although they have been trained in the West.[28] This calls for support and training to navigate the tensions associated with the researcher’s dynamic research positionalities.
As mentioned above, the current typical empirical legal research training does not fully consider these differentiations exposing Global South researchers to enormous challenges in the field. That is not to say that each group should have specific training depending on where the research is happening, but rather perhaps it is time to consider socio-legal empirical research training and ethical considerations that acknowledge the different research(ers) contexts. Further, partnerships with local universities in the focus countries is key in conducting field research particularly in supporting administrative processes, access and gaining trust of the participants. There is a need to leverage researchers’ existing contacts within their home universities so that they can serve as bridges for strengthening current institutional relationships or establishing new ones.
This could be one of the areas that Prof. Koen had in mind for universities to engage in promoting human rights research and knowledge creation from the local level. In the age of economic globalisation, researchers shed light on the implications of particular developments for people and produce the knowledge necessary to interpret global human rights norms against human rights concerns at local sites. Therefore, it is time that universities in the West embrace training that fully acknowledges different research contexts, as researchers are important actors in actualizing the capacity of local communities as knowledge creators.
Acknowledgement
The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Research Foundation–Flanders (FWO) through the FWO Fundamental Research Fellowship (Grant No. 11P9224N) during which this blog was written.
[1] Koen De Feyter, ‘Sites of Rights Resistance’, The Local Relevance of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press 2011) 14.
[2] Koen De Feyter, ‘Localizing Human Rights’ 5–6 <https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/container2143/files/Publications/DP/2006/02-defeyter.pdf> accessed 4 November 2025.
[3] ibid 12.
[4] ibid; De Feyter (n 1) 24–26.
[5] De Feyter, (n 2) 10–11.
[6] ibid 13–14.
[7] ibid 14–15.
[8] ibid 15–17.
[9] ibid 15.
[10] ibid 16–17.
[11] ibid; Margaret E Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks in International and Regional Politics’ [1999] UNESCO 89, 89–90 <https://courses.washington.edu/pbaf531/KeckSikkink.pdf> accessed 25 November 2025.
[12] De Feyter, (n 2) 18.
[13] Stephanie Lagoutte and Danielle Soskin, ‘The Role of Academia in Human Rights’ Protection and Promotion’ (Danish Institute for Human Rights 2018) Working paper 23–25 <https://www.humanrights.dk/files/media/migrated/working_paper_academia_september2018.pdf> accessed 7 November 2025.
[14] Chika Charles Aniekwe and others, ‘Academic-Ngo Collaboration in International Development Research: A Reflection on the Issues’ (Development Studies Association 2012) Working paper 5 <https://www.intrac.org/app/uploads/2016/09/Academic-NGO-Collaboration-in-International-Development_September-2012.pdf> accessed 7 November 2025; Lagoutte and Soskin (n 13) 28.
[15] Lagoutte and Soskin (n 13) 35–36.
[16] ‘Friends of Lake Turkana’ <https://www.friendsoflaketurkana.org/> accessed 7 November 2025.
[17] ‘Kenya Land Alliance’ <https://kenyalandalliance.or.ke/index.php/welcome/klamembership> accessed 7 November 2025.
[18] Aniekwe and others (n 14) 4.
[19] Laura Roper, ‘Achieving Successful Academic-Practitioner Research Collaborations’ (2002) 12 Development in Practice 338, 113–117 <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0961450220149717> accessed 7 November 2025.
[20] ibid 111; LDRG, ‘Law and Development Research in a Metropolitan Law Faculty’ 2 <https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/container2621/files/21st%20century%20legal%20research%20-April%202018%20(website).pdf> accessed 7 November 2025.
[21] Koen De Feyter, ‘Leaving No One behind in Human Rights Research’ (2018) 2 Peace Human Rights Governance 1 <https://doi.org/10.14658/pupj-phrg-2018-1-1> accessed 4 November 2025.
[22] ibid 10–12.
[23] ibid 14–15.
[24] ibid 13.
[25] ibid 18.
[26] Ilaha Abasli, Ahmed El Assal and Yasmine Hafez, ‘Why Are You Not Doing Research in Your Home Country? Dissecting Expectations of Southern Researchers’ [2025] Development in Practice 1, 5–6 <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2025.2481519> accessed 6 November 2025.
[27] ibid 3; Aisha Giwa, ‘Insider/Outsider Issues for Development Researchers from the Global South’ (2015) 9 Geography Compass 316, 2–5 <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gec3.12219> accessed 6 November 2025; Emmanuel Akwasi Adu-Ampong and Ellis Adjei Adams, ‘“But You Are Also Ghanaian, You Should Know”: Negotiating the Insider–Outsider Research Positionality in the Fieldwork Encounter’ (2020) 26 Qualitative Inquiry 583, 583–584 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419846532> accessed 6 November 2025.
[28] Abasli, El Assal and Hafez (n 26) 8.