COVID-19 & Displacement Hackathon

About the Hackathon

On 16 October, 2020, the From the Field team hosted a virtual “social science hackathon” to celebrate World Food Day 2020 and the launch of the University of Edinburgh's new Health and Migration Research Network, a group of researchers from across the University studying the sociopolitical links between public health and migration. 

As part of this hackathon, postgraduate students in programmes as diverse as international development, global food security and nutrition, and medical anthropology followed the life cycle of a multidisciplinary research project during the pandemic. Working in small thematic groups with real-life data gathered through the From the Field project on the impact of COVID-19 measures on agricultural livelihoods of displaced Syrians in the Middle East, each student group was tasked with analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, including household surveys and visual ethnographic data in Excel and NVivo.

This rapid-fire online workshop gave students the opportunity to engage with cross-disciplinary issues such as forced displacement, livelihoods, food security, health, and gender. Students were supported by mentors affiliated with the From the Field project, including Dr Ann-Christin Zuntz, Dr Stella Mazeri, Mr Joseph Burke and Ms Mackenzie Klema.

“I found today very interesting. You managed to make quantitative research sound fun! The small groups were a good technique and working on real data with people directly involved in the project was very useful and made us feel involved. Thank you!” - Hackathon participant

Student Reflection: Taya Tsebieva, MSc International Development

As the whole world has been going through an apocalyptic experience, it is quite easy to forget about the most vulnerable among us. It is now a widely shared fact that the poor, the homeless, and people with on-going medical conditions are some of those who have been hit the hardest during the pandemic of COVID-19. Refugees and internally displaced people, sadly, intersect with each of those social groups, exposing the flaws in their support system. Thus, the event covering issues of food security of Syrian refugees and IDPs led by the University of Edinburgh academics and experts in the field, planned to coincide with the World Food Day 2020, was acutely timely and needed to raise awareness among students. 

When I first received the email circulated by my Programme Director (MSc International Development) and personal tutor Dr Ann-Christin Zuntz on behalf of the Syrian Food Futures team with the call to participate in a social hackathon, I got taken aback immediately. Wait, what? A social hackathon? Is it not one of those crazy sprinting activities where super clever guys with computer science degrees develop brand new software or design revolutionary hardware overnight? No, that is definitely not about me, I thought. But then I remembered a promise I made to myself at the start of my time at Edinburgh to challenge myself in every direction possible over the course of the year (as if going back to university in 2020 was not enough of a challenge). So I replied to Dr Zuntz’s email asking her to make me part of a completely alien concept to me – a social hackathon. And should I say how happy I am that I did?!

Prior to the event date we participants were asked to read select reports and short articles to familiarise ourselves with relevant statistics and the overall context of the problem. It really helped to prepare for the upcoming discussion. The idea of the whole event was to introduce students to research design strategies based on the Syrian Food Futures’ From the Field project using authentic data in the form of interview samples and food diaries. On the day of the hackathon we were placed in four smaller working groups each focusing on a different aspect of COVID-19 impact on Syrian refugees’ agricultural livelihoods: food security, health, WASH. I was in the employment group and with the support from our mentor Mackenzie Klema, a first-hand researcher in the original project, we had a chance to design our own specific research questions, work with real data across three countries and more than 60 respondents, use the NVivo qualitative data analysis software, allocate roles for each team member based on their skills, and present the results in a graphic way - and all of that in just over 3 hours!

It was such an amazing experience for me – to dig deep into the topic I hold dear as a former refugee myself; to get exposed to new forms of learning and teaching as an educator; to be challenged in acquiring new research analysis skills and practicing working in a team with people I had met for the first time. With the detailed step-by-step description of the project design and Q&A session by the team, it felt like a real experience of being a field researcher. Everything about this event was unprecedented for me – the idea, the format, the intensity – and that what makes it memorable. I am happy I took this chance to broaden my views on teaching methods in social sciences and am looking forward to using the hackathon technique with my students as well. I would like to thank all the organisers, research team and expert panelists who dedicated their time and efforts to provide such a unique learning experience for us.

Student Reflection: Jasmin Abdel Ghany, MSc Social Research

This hackathon was different from other hackathons: No coding skills expected. Instead, to understand how Syrian refugees’ lives are being impacted by the pandemic, this hackathon built on the data analysis skills that already existed among us participants. All students in my team had a different background. Our group members came from China, Germany, Scotland, and South Africa, studying Global Health Policy, Medical Anthropology, International Development and Social Research.  As we shared tasks within our team and exchanged ideas on how to go about the data analysis, we quickly learned from each other’s perspectives.

In every hackathon, managing time is a challenge: After designing research questions and considering ethical and logistical challenges of the research project, we had about 1.5 hours with colleagues we had just met to dig into data from food diaries, interviews, videos, and photographs to draw conclusions. In that sense, the event pushed us to split tasks effectively among our team members and focus on the important things.

Working with both quantitative and qualitative data in the analysis was very insightful: as my team had discussed findings from the quantitative dataset first, once team members who had been working with video and photo material reported their perspective, the data became more alive. This also made me realize how useful it can be to discuss interpretations of data together and share views in an iterative approach. It helped us tremendously in making sense of the data collected.

The researchers who guided us in the process shared their experience with us and pointed us to challenges they had encountered in conducting this remote ethnography during the pandemic. For instance, how could data collectors receive more material from female study participants? And how should seemingly contradictory data be interpreted? Our tutors also shared with us how they cooperated with local partners to address such challenges. This gave us a much more real picture of what interdisciplinary research in an international environment may actually look like in practice.

At the end of the hackathon, it was really fascinating to see what takeaway points each of the four groups on Employment, Health, Food Security, and WASH had been able to identify in such a short amount of time by analyzing various data with their team. Sharing insights together with all participants gave us a more nuanced understanding of the situation of Syrian refugees during the pandemic – and it felt meaningful because the researchers of the Syrian Futures project were interested in hearing our perspective.

The hackathon was not another lecture – it was a challenging hands-on training where experts facilitated a space for us to learn together by research in practice, bridging diverse academic disciplines in just a few, but intense hours online. To summarize, an impactful learning opportunity in an engaging format that we students would like to experience again!

Launch of the Health and Migration Network: