Researching Security is a LAB Partner organisation which has established a blog to share research interests and experience. RS members were interviewed by Felicitas Röhrig.

Researching security, violence and organised crime is fraught with methodological and ethical concerns and presents common barriers across disciplinary fields. These issues become particularly pressing for early career researchers with little experience, few connections, and scarce resources. As such, a blog entitled Researching Security (www.researchingsecurity.org) was established in 2011 by PhD students as a means through which to diffuse experiences in relation to criminal, (in)security and violence research. Not only is the platform provided useful to discuss common problems, competing methodologies and share concerns over ethics, the forum has also proved to be popular around the world – reaching a concentrated range of readers and commentators in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, the UK and the US – but also as far as Indonesia and Syria.

As in 2013, the blog has become partners with one of the leading UK Think Tanks on Latin American politics, the Latin American Bureau (www.lab.org.uk). In June 2013, some of the blog members will speak on the Joint International Conference of the Peace and Security Studies and International Studies Association (PSS-ISA), presenting and discussing field research insights and techniques with a wider audience. In anticipation of the conference, some blog members have talked about their thoughts, motivation and experiences in their field.

The recent partnership with LAB and your invitation to speak on the PSS-ISA conference in Budapest show that there is considerable demand for the information you share on the Researching Security Blog. Can you tell me what gave you the idea to create it in the first place?

Verena Brähler: Some of us got to know each other on the annual PILAS Conference at the University of Cambridge in 2011. We realised that there was a huge lack of information on how to research security, organised crime and violence. At the same time we were very motivated and eager to challenge outdated analytical frameworks on how to research these issues. That’s why we decided to create a platform for better exchange between PhD students around the world who work on similar issues. Our blog is this platform.

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