Citing Folayan and Allman (2011), Biruk notes that whereas researchers earn money, status, and accolades for their work, research participants are expected to understand their role as volunary, altruistic, and towards the collective good (103).
Biruk challenges the abstract universality of data, seen as unanchored from its site and relations of produciton, by demonstrating through her ethnography how Malawi and Malawians shaped it. (page 27).
Biruk notes extensive research fatique by Malawi participants and states: "residents across sub-Saharan Africa have now become accustomed to projects in their midst," (23). In her conclusion, she notes that this includes anthropologists ("the researchers (including anthropologists) continue to come, again and again") (216) so she doesn't seem to see this as unique to the field of demography (echoing my own experiences as well).