scholarly journals The ‘problem’ of undesigned relationality: Ethnographic fieldwork, dual roles and research ethics

Ethnography ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Bell
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Unique Feature ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Dual Roles ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Procedural Ethics ◽  
The Ideal

Perhaps the most unique feature of ethnographic fieldwork is the distinctive form of relationality it entails, where the ethnographer's identity as a researcher is not fixed in the way typical of most other forms of research. In this paper, I explore how this ‘undesigned relationality’ is understood, both in procedural ethics frameworks and by the different disciplines that have come to claim a stake in the ‘method’ itself. Demonstrating that the ethical issues it entails are primarily conceptualized via the lens of the ‘dual role’, I use this as a means of exploring the ideal relationship between researcher and subject that procedural ethics frameworks are premised upon. I go on to explore the epistemological differences in ways that ethnographers themselves understand and respond to the multiple forms of relationality that characterize fieldwork and the challenge this poses to the possibility of a pan-disciplinary consensus on ethnographic research ethics.

scholarly journals Ethically important moments as data: reflections from ethnographic fieldwork in prisons

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Real World ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Research Ethics Committees ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Ethics Of Research ◽  
Procedural Ethics ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

Qualitative researchers often face unpredictable ethical issues during fieldwork. These may be regarded as ethical dilemmas that need to be ‘solved’, but Guillemin and Gillam’s concept of ‘ethically important moments’ provides an alternative framing. Using examples, their concept is developed to suggest that ethical issues in the conduct of research can illuminate and supplement other fieldwork data. Far from being problematic, the dissonance between the procedural ethics of research ethics committees and real-world research can provide opportunities for a more subtle and nuanced understanding of the field.

Agency and Agendas: Revisiting the Roles of the Researcher and the Researched in Ethnographic Fieldwork

1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhiannon Mosher ◽  
Jennifer Long ◽  
Elisabeth Le ◽  
Lauren Harding
Keyword(s):  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Collaborative Project ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Ideal

Drawing on the authors' research experiences, and using Anna Tsing's (2005) concept of “friction,” this article considers how ethnographic research is an essentially collaborative project. Ethnographic knowledge is generated by researchers and their (intended) participants – our agencies and agendas – come together to co-create a field of research. We argue that how these contextually embedded agendas align, differ, and/or diverge deeply shapes ethnographic knowledge. We also consider the effects of ethnographic legacies: of past ethnographers on their contemporaries; of the ideal, “slow” ethnographic approach for researchers working outside of academia; and of the future afterlives of our own work.

scholarly journals Situational ethics in a feminist ethnography on commercial surrogacy in Russia: Negotiating access and authority when recruiting participants through institutional gatekeepers

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 205979911983185
Author(s):  
Christina Weis
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Feminist Ethnography ◽  
Commercial Surrogacy ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Advisory Boards ◽  
Situational Ethics ◽  
Ethical Choices ◽  
Procedural Ethics

In this article, I discuss methodological and ethical dilemmas when recruiting participants with the help of medical and institutional gatekeepers during my ethnographic fieldwork on commercial surrogacy in St Petersburg, Russia. Based on four case studies, I argue for the use of situational ethics. Solid up-front ethics that are approved by institutional advisory boards are important to ensure that the researcher has done their best to identify potential ethical issues prior to data collection and offer deontological safeguards. However, as empirical researchers, we are familiar with the unanticipated that is bound to happen once we commence data collection. In such cases, when the proposed and approved ethical conduct is no longer suited and researchers must make new ethical choices, situational ethics that take the immediate context into consideration are crucial. I further argue that situational ethics must not only be an extension of procedural ethics when the latter are no longer suited but an alternative to procedural ethics in order to make the research empowering, reciprocal and transformative of existing disadvantaging power relations. With this article, I contribute to the growing literature that argues in favour of situational ethics.

scholarly journals Risk-Aversion or Ethical Responsibility?

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-162
Author(s):  
Stephen Jacobs ◽  
Alan Apperley
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Risk Aversion ◽  
Medical Research ◽  
Research Ethics ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Audit Culture

Ethics seems to be of increasing concern for researchers in Higher Education Institutes and funding bodies demand ever more transparent and robust ethics procedures. While we agree that an ethical approach to fieldwork in religion is critical, we take issue with the approach that ethics committees and reviews adopt in assessing the ethicality of proposed research projects. We identify that the approach to research ethics is informed by consequentialism – the consequences of actions, and Kantianism – the idea of duty. These two ethical paradigms are amenable to the prevailing audit culture of HE. We argue that these ethical paradigms, while might be apposite for bio-medical research, are not appropriate for fieldwork in religion. However, because ethics should be a crucial consideration for all research, it is necessary to identify a different approach to ethical issues arising in ethnographic research. We suggest that a virtue ethics approach – concerned with character – is much more consistent with the situated, relational and ongoing nature of ethnographic research.

Ethnohistory's Ethnohistory

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Michael E. Harkin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Theoretical Orientation ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
European Contact ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Foundational Work

This article examines the first decades of the field of ethnohistory as it developed in the United States. It participated in the general rapprochement between history and anthropology of mid-twentieth-century social science. However, unlike parallel developments in Europe and in other research areas, ethnohistory specifically arose out of the study of American Indian communities in the era of the Indian Claims Commission. Thus ethnohistory developed from a pragmatic rather than a theoretical orientation, with practitioners testifying both in favor of and against claims. Methodology was flexible, with both documentary sources and ethnographic methods employed to the degree that each was feasible. One way that ethnohistory was innovative was the degree to which women played prominent roles in its development. By the end of the first decade, the field was becoming broader and more willing to engage both theoretical and ethical issues raised by the foundational work. In particular, the geographic scope began to reach well beyond North America, especially to Latin America, where archival resources and the opportunities for ethnographic research were plentiful, but also to areas such as Melanesia, where recent European contact allowed researchers to observe the early postcontact period directly and to address the associated theoretical questions with greater authority. Ethnohistory is thus an important example of a field of study that grew organically without an overarching figure or conscious plan but that nevertheless came to engage central issues in cultural and historical analysis.

Research Ethics Committees’ Oversight of Biomedical Research in South Africa: A Thematic Analysis of Ethical Issues Raised During Ethics Review of Non-Expedited Protocols

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blessing Silaigwana ◽  
Douglas Wassenaar
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Research Ethics ◽  
South African ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Financial Contracts ◽  
Scientific Validity ◽  
Participant Selection ◽  
Education And Awareness

In South Africa, biomedical research cannot commence until it has been reviewed and approved by a local research ethics committee (REC). There remains a dearth of empirical data on the nature and frequency of ethical issues raised by such committees. This study sought to identify ethical concerns typically raised by two South African RECs. Meeting minutes for 180 protocols reviewed between 2009 and 2014 were coded and analyzed using a preexisting framework. Results showed that the most frequent queries involved informed consent, respect for participants, and scientific validity. Interestingly, administrative issues (non-ethical) such as missing researchers’ CVs and financial contracts emerged more frequently than ethical questions such as favorable risk/benefit ratio and fair participant selection. Although not generalizable to all RECs, our data provide insights into two South African RECs’ review concerns. More education and awareness of the actual ethical issues typically raised by such committees might help improve review outcomes and relationships between researchers and RECs.

On Being a Punk and a Scholar: A Reflexive Account of Researching a Punk Scene in Russia

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Gololobov
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Social World ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Youth Subcultures ◽  
The University

Ethnographic studies of youth subcultures, scenes and urban tribes often rely on insiders’ accounts, where researchers investigate a social environment of which they are presently or formerly members. This approach raises important questions about the positionality of the researcher, and the reflexivity, epistemology and ethics of an ethnographic investigation, as different roles and engagement with the field, as well as the very identity of the ‘field’ itself, no longer fit into the methodological framework of traditional ethnography. This article explores the difficulties that arise during ethnographic research on one's own social world. I was actively involved in the Russian punk scene before pursuing my academic career in England, and in the framework of a research project on post-socialist punk at the University of Warwick, I went back to study this milieu as a ‘field’ in two different sites in 2009 and in 2010. The article shows the complexity of researching one's own subculture and demonstrates that active discentring of the ‘knowing authority’ in studying one's own ‘tribe’ necessarily involves a transformation of its main research paradigms, where epistemological and ethical issues appear to be rearranged in a new way which radically affects the methodological foundations of such an investigation.

scholarly journals Is It Time to Re-Evaluate the Ethics Governance of Social Media Research?

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 452-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Samuel ◽  
W. Ahmed ◽  
H. Kara ◽  
C. Jessop ◽  
S. Quinton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Research Ethics ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Research Ethics Committees ◽  
Media Ethics ◽  
Research Institution ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Social Media Research

This article reports on a U.K. workshop on social media research ethics held in May 2018. There were 10 expert speakers and an audience of researchers, research ethics committee members, and research institution representatives. Participants reviewed the current state of social media ethics, discussing well-rehearsed questions such as what needs consent in social media research, and how the public/private divide differs between virtual and real-life environments. The lack of answers to such questions was noted, along with the difficulties posed for ethical governance structures in general and the work of research ethics committees in particular. Discussions of these issues enabled the creation of two recommendations. The first is for research ethics committees and journal editors to add the category of ‘data subject research’ to the existing categories of ‘text research’ and ‘human subject research’. This would reflect the fact that social media research does not fall into either of the existing categories and so needs a category of its own. The second is that ethical issues should be considered at all stages of social media research, up to and including aftercare. This acknowledges that social media research throws up a large number of ethical issues throughout the process which, under current arrangements for ethical research governance, risks remaining unaddressed.

scholarly journals Social Roles in the Ethnographic Fieldwork

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desalegn Amsalu
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Qualitative Research Methods ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Global Literature ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social

This paper investigates the concept of social roles in ethnographic fieldwork, its place in the global literature discussing qualitative research methods, and its application in the Ethiopian ethnographic fieldwork. I discuss that social roles are all about seeing one’s role and status, in this case, as researchers, in the social structure of a society or community we do the ethnographic research. Based on my own experience and the experience of other ethnographers elsewhere, I argue that a conscious use of our social roles is a <i>sin qua non</i> for successful ethnographic fieldwork. However, this concept has been given less emphasis in the literature of qualitative research methods. Social roles in the ethnographic fieldwork are especially less known in the Ethiopian ethnographic research experience. <b> </b>

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