This paper is based on a recently developed conceptual framework introduced in my article on what I term the temporal continuum of violence. Drawing on my experience of sexual violence during doctoral fieldwork in Morocco, where I was assaulted by a trusted research participant, it examines how gender-based and sexual violence (GBSV) shapes the research process and remains persistently marginalised within the social sciences. I argue that violence experienced in the field should not be understood as an isolated event but as part of a temporal continuum unfolding before, immediately after, and long after the assault. This continuum reveals how institutional shortcomings—including the absence of training on GBSV, inadequate support mechanisms, and bureaucratic procedures that can prolong trauma—compound the effects of violence and undermine researchers' wellbeing and capacity to conduct ethical research. The paper further extends this analysis by examining the role of academic censorship in maintaining the invisibility of these experiences. The reluctance to acknowledge or legitimise discussions of gender-based violence in fieldwork contributes to preserving existing academic hierarchies and institutional status quo, discouraging researchers from addressing these issues openly and limiting the development of safer research practices. Situated within feminist and decolonial epistemologies, this contribution challenges the presumed neutrality of knowledge production by recognising the embodied and situated nature of research. It argues that safety, care, and institutional recognition of researchers' vulnerabilities are not peripheral concerns but fundamental conditions for rigorous, ethical, and inclusive scholarship. By conceptualising the temporal continuum of violence, this paper contributes to ongoing debates on gender, power, and knowledge production while calling for structural changes in research institutions and academic cultures.
