Academic Research Can Be Personal: A Note to Scholars Studying Their Own Countries.

Research that is personal is not inferior. It is often more honest, demanding, and transformative.

During my PhD, I often faced the question, “Why Ghana?” It came up in proposal reviews, seminars, and even casual academic conversations. Behind it was a subtle suggestion that research should be detached, that studying one’s own country somehow weakens objectivity. I was told, more than once, that I needed to broaden my scope. Eventually, I did, as reflected in this paper where I expanded to include Tanzania. Though it fitted the research design, the process left me questioning,

why is familiarity and proximity often treated as a problem in academia?

The assumption seems to be that distance guarantees rigor, while familiarity implies bias. Yet proximity can offer depth that distance cannot. Scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant have long argued that reflexivity, understanding one’s position within the field of study, is not a threat to objectivity but a precondition for it. Studying your own country allows you to see the subtleties that lie beneath official data and policy documents: the informal institutions, social codes, and political rhythms that shape everyday governance. You understand the context because you live it, and that awareness can make your analysis richer, not weaker.

Comfort and familiarity are not the enemies of critical inquiry but rather a sources of insight. As Donna Haraway famously reminded us, all knowledge is situated. There is no view from nowhere.

When researchers are rooted in their context, they can ask sharper questions, interpret findings with greater nuance, and stay accountable to the communities they study.

What matters is not detachment but reflexivity, the discipline of recognizing how one’s position shapes what is observed and how conclusions are drawn.

Still, many young scholars from the Global South are told, directly or indirectly, that they must look outward to be taken seriously. Comparative studies can certainly strengthen arguments, but expanding one’s scope should serve a clear analytical purpose, not an aesthetic one.

Broadening for the sake of appearing global often turns deep, grounded work into shallow generalization. As Bent Flyvbjerg argues, depth of understanding within a single context can reveal more about social mechanisms than broad but superficial comparisons. Academic contribution is not measured by how many countries you include, but by how well you explain the dynamics within the one you know best.

This tension reflects a deeper imbalance in global knowledge production. Researchers in Western institutions rarely face skepticism for studying their own societies. Yet African, Asian, and Latin American scholars are often encouraged to shift focus away from their home contexts, as though their proximity makes their work less credible. This mindset echoes what Linda Tuhiwai Smith calls the colonial politics of knowledge, where research from the Global South is treated as empirical rather than theoretical. Choosing to study your own country challenges that hierarchy. It asserts the legitimacy of local knowledge and positions you not as a subject of study, but as a producer of it.

Research that is personal is not inferior.

It is often more honest, demanding, and transformative. It requires balancing emotion with evidence, care with critique, and belonging with analysis. It turns lived experience into intellectual clarity. And it reminds us that scholarship is not only about detachment, it is also about connection.

So if you are ever told to broaden your scope, pause and ask why. If it strengthens your argument, by all means do it.

But if it is merely to appear more objective or international, resist the pressure. Objectivity is not a function of geography. Distance does not guarantee rigor. Insight often comes from the courage to study what feels close to home.

In the end, I learned that choosing to study Ghana was not a limitation. Understanding one’s context, its contradictions, its resilience, and its evolving institutions is critical for effective research.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Governance and Development Advisory, or any institution with which the author is affiliated. This piece is written in a personal capacity to contribute to critical dialogue on research in Africa.