Methodology

This project embraces a highly innovative approach to advancing knowledge that is collaborative, synergistic, interdisciplinary, and multi-sited.  By centering ethnography as a form of knowledge production, we move beyond narrow statistical estimates of the availability of misoprostol in hospitals and pharmacies to illuminate multiple pathways through which misoprostol is available to some consumers, patients, health workers, and health facilities, and not others.  

Into Women’s Hands/Entre Les Mains Des Femmes fosters South-South and North-South capacity building and resource sharing at the level of the university.  We center the role of national universities in Burkina Faso and Senegal in the conduct of ethnographic research and dissemination of results in academic, professional, and community arenas. Each component of the research process occurs collaboratively, including the elaboration of project budgets, training of research assistants, the design and pretesting of research instruments, the collection and analysis of data, and the publication and presentation of results. We meet regularly via Zoom and in person to discuss fieldwork, data analysis, and to plan next steps. All team members have access to project documents through a virtual platform. Project investigators have access to online scholarly resources through Brandeis University Library.

We are also committed to training future leaders in health research. The project investigators provide graduate students at Université Cheikh Anta Diop and Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo with classroom and hands-on training in ethnographic research. Our training approach draws on the expertise of Burkinabé and Senegalese scholars with extensive experience in research on sexual and reproductive health, including Dr. Cheikh Ibrahima Niang (Université Cheikh Anta Diop), Dr. Ramatou Ouédraogo (African Population and Health Research Center), and Dr. Fatoumata Ouattara and Dr. Seydou Drabo (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement). We also engage in continuous mentorship of our assistants in data collection and analysis and program management. The project equips the investigators’ units with resources to support research such as reading material, subscriptions to academic journals, computers, and Nvivo software for data analysis.  Additionally, we advocate for the integration of research workshops and seminars into existing course offerings, and other forms of support for graduate students, beyond the life of the project. 

See below for descriptions of our data collection strategies!