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In the wake of the US-led and Pakistan-allied “war on terror”, residents in Northwest Pakistan have faced inconceivable structural and physical violence, in ways that pose ethical challenges in ethnographic writing and research. Over the last few decades, militancy, banditry and overall insecurity have hampered relief efforts in the area and significantly weakened basic infrastructure. In this article, the author illustrates how an initial security plan to undertake fieldwork research in this “volatile” region proved somewhat irrelevant because of her positionality, gender and race/ethnicity. The author explores the implications of these dynamics in contexts characterized by unequal gender relations and strict gender segregation. In addition, undertaking empirical work in the context of epistemological frameworks in a region that has been subjected to active conflict, militarised operations and a singular representation in the global and local media, poses other ethical challenges for anthropologists searching for new areas of study and decolonised models of representation. This paper reiterates the importance of a reflexive approach of ethics that acknowledges the interpenetration of race, gender and the thick web of relationships in the production of knowledge and is, at the same time, respectful of cultural specificity., International Quarterly for Asian Studies, Vol. 53 No. 4 (2022): Negotiating Research Ethics in Volatile Contexts, Part I

At the present time, researchers have increasingly shifted their focus to earlier stages of dementia, such as subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), to enable early diagnosis and/or intervention to prevent or slow future cognitive decline. Older people who perceive very mild cognitive difficulties but do not demonstrate objective evidence of cognitive impairment on neuropsychological testing are characterised as SCD. By contrast, those people who experience cognitive difficulties and demonstrate overt cognitive deficits on objective testing but remain functionally independent are characterised as MCI. These two groups are recognised as being at a higher risk of developing dementia compared to cognitively healthy older adults. Whilst functional capacity has typically differentiated MCI from dementia, it seems that mild changes in functioning are experienced even in MCI; however, this remains under-explored and relatively unclear. This research will therefore concentrate on exploring the nature, extent and impact of subtle functional change in the ‘at risk’ cohorts (SCD and MCI). Given that existing functional assessment tools have typically been designed for people with dementia and are therefore too gross, this research will also investigate a novel self-report questionnaire for measuring this early functional change and how clinical variables such as cognitive performance, physical health and psychosocial functioning correlate with downstream subjective functional change in individuals ‘at risk’ of dementia. The research will complement and extend the previous literature with respect to early functional change occurring in SCD and MCI and offer further support for the implementation of formal measurement tools in clinical practice in order to inform diagnosis, prognosis, and potential early intervention and psychoeducation.