Shifting Identities, Policy Networks, and the Practical and Ethical Challenges of Gaining Access to the Field in Interventions

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-36
Author(s):  
Roland Kostić
Keyword(s):  
Policy Networks ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
International Intervention ◽  
Elite Networks ◽  
Interview Situation ◽  
Expert Interview ◽  
Access To The Field ◽  
Shifting Identities

This chapter explains interviews as an illustrative example of the effects that a violent or illiberal context can have on how informants or interviewees are accessed. It points out that what is shared in an interview is influenced in particular ways by certain contexts and on meta-data in interviews about war and mass violence. The chapter focuses on Roland Kostić, who shows how interviewing intervention elites brings about its own series of challenges and dilemmas. It discusses Kostić's interview-based research with international intervention elites in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also shows how long-term research is crucial for opening the door to elite networks in a way that has allowed for behind-the-scene insights and information that are far beyond a formal expert interview situation.

Gaining access to the field in medical ethnography: Reflections on ethical, methodological, and structural challenges in the study of long-term care facilities

2021 ◽  
pp. 136345932098887
Author(s):  
Neta Roitenberg
Keyword(s):  
Long Term Care ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Care Facilities ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Access To The Field ◽  
Medical Ethnography

The article extends the discussion on the challenges in gaining access to the field in medical ethnographic research, focusing on long-term care (LTC) facilities. Medical institutions have been documented to be difficult sites to access. The reference, however, is to the recruitment of patients as informants. The challenges of recruiting practitioners as informants have not been investigated at all. The article presents the key issues that emerged in the process of gaining social access at the sites of two LTC facilities as part of a study on care workers’ identities. The main obstacles encountered during the fieldwork were organizational constraints and negotiating control over the process of recruiting the lower occupational tier of care workers with gatekeepers. The article presents the coping strategies implemented to overcome the ethical and methodological obstacles: continually reassessing the consent and cooperation of participants and developing a rapport with nurse’s aides during interviews.

scholarly journals Confronting ethical challenges in long-term research programs in the tropics

2021 ◽  
Vol 255 ◽  
pp. 108933
Author(s):  
Reinmar Seidler ◽  
Richard B. Primack ◽  
Varun R. Goswami ◽  
Sarala Khaling ◽  
M. Soubadra Devy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
The Tropics

scholarly journals Religion, Mass Violence, and Illiberal Regimes: Recent Research on the Rohingya in Myanmar

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-111
Author(s):  
Faizah Binte Zakaria
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
International Intervention ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Religious Dimension ◽  
International Attention ◽  
Legal Infrastructure

The plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar has drawn considerable international attention in recent years but a solution to the crisis remains elusive. This article gathers pertinent research from key books on Myanmar's politics and society published during the last five years and synthesizes their contributions to our understanding of the issue. It argues that the picture emerging from these works highlights how legal infrastructure for dealing with mass violence fails to deal adequately with the realities of an illiberal state. It further shows how the conflict's religious dimension - amplified through public discourse - obscures a competition between historically oppressed peoples to be heard. Rather than a conflict between Buddhists and Muslims, the nested dynamics of Rakhine State's regional politics shaped a situation where minorities turn on other minorities. This critical reading of the issue thus implies that international intervention in the form of labeling victims to save and perpetrators to sanction would likely be unproductive.

Becoming Something Different: Learning from Esmé

2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen Fairbanks ◽  
Penny Mason Crooks ◽  
Mary Ariail
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Home School ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
School History ◽  
Shifting Identities

In this article, Fairbanks, Crooks, and Ariail followed Esmé Martinez, a Spanish-speaking Latina, from the sixth grade to the eleventh grade, focusing on her perspectives of schooling and her shifting identities related to home, school, friendships, and future. Drawing on the construct of artifacts, a sociohistorical concept that understands skills, practices, and the means of putting them to use in social spaces, they detail Esmé's school history, the ways she was positioned there, and the resources she used to respond and reposition herself. This examination offers a long-term profile of the complex interactions that school entails and a nuanced reflection on agency within institutional constraints.

scholarly journals Intergenerational monitoring in clinical trials of germline gene editing

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Cwik
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Gene Editing ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Germline Gene ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Human Subjects Research ◽  
Follow Up Study

Design of clinical trials for germline gene editing stretches current accepted standards for human subjects research. Among the challenges involved is a set of issues concerning intergenerational monitoring—long-term follow-up study of subjects and their descendants. Because changes made at the germline would be heritable, germline gene editing could have adverse effects on individuals’ health that can be passed on to future generations. Determining whether germline gene editing is safe and effective for clinical use thus may require intergenerational monitoring. The aim of this paper is to identify and argue for the significance of a set of ethical issues raised by intergenerational monitoring in future clinical trials of germline gene editing. Though long-term, multigenerational follow-up study of this kind is not without precedent, intergenerational monitoring in this context raises unique ethical challenges, challenges that go beyond existing protocols and standards for human subjects research. These challenges will need to be addressed if clinical trials of germline gene editing are ever pursued.

scholarly journals Well-Designed Studies are Needed to Assess Adverse Effects on Healthy Lung Function after Long-Term Face Masks Usage

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. e1222
Author(s):  
Arni S. R. Srinivasa-Rao ◽  
Steven G. Krantz
Keyword(s):  
Lung Function ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Cohort Studies ◽  
Protective Equipment ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Differential Impact ◽  
The World ◽  
Healthy Persons ◽  
Healthy Lung

Face coverings, especially cloth masks, were the critical personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The advantages of such masks were well understood and widely used across the world. With this idea in mind, we have reviewed the available data and literature to identify whether masks exert an untoward effect on lung function in otherwise healthy persons. Interestingly enough, we have found no well-designed studies to assess whether masks have an unintended negative consequence on healthy lung function. Moreover, we are also aware that there could exist a differential impact of facial coverings depending on the type of masks exposed to. In addition, there could also be some ethical challenges in order to implement these cohort studies. We are recommending the need for thorough evaluations of long term mask utilization.

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