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Thinking Ethically in
Qualitative Research
Qualitative Essentials
Series Editor:
Janice Morse, University of Utah
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
van den Hoonaard, Will C., and Deborah K. van den Hoonaard, “Preface,” in
Essentials of Thinking Ethically in Qualitative Research, pp. 7–9. © 2013 Left
Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
7
8 • Preface
The fourth and final set of chapters brings in a discussion about com-
pliance with formal ethics frameworks. Whatever the designation of ethics
committees (institutional review boards in the United States, research
ethics boards in Canada, local ethics committees in the United Kingdom,
and human research ethics committees in Australia), they may evoke
trepidation, fear, and disappointment. However, they also offer opportu-
nities for graduate students to probe the relevance of their theories, topics,
and strategies to gain a more profound understanding of ethics and of the
meaning and purpose of qualitative research. Chapter 13 discusses the
process of formal research-ethics review, and Chapter 14 briefly consid-
ers “ethics lag,” whereby the routines and exigencies of contemporary and
emerging research practices outstrip ethics policies.
Acknowledgments
We wish to acknowledge our gratitude to Janice M. Morse, series editor,
who invited us to author this textbook for PhD students. Her commit-
ment to ethics in research is well known, yielding gems of useful insights
on the nature of research ethics. We also thank Mitch Allen, the pub-
lisher of Left Coast Press, for providing us with an avenue of publishing
our ideas about what it means to conduct ethical research.
At the Atlantic Centre for Qualitative Research and Analysis (St.
Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada), we benefited
from the research assistance of Amanda Merrithew. Lehanne Knowlton,
staff member extraordinaire at the Centre, provided us with her insights,
office and editorial help, and a sense of humor to bring this book project
to fruition.
Riva Soucie and Linda Caissie provided us with useful advice about
sections of the book that involved their own research–and we thank them
heartfully. We also thank Karitas Þrainsdottir of Kopavógur, Iceland, for
verifying our information on Iceland (in Chapter 3).
We both owe a note of thanks to St. Thomas University and the Uni-
versity of New Brunswick (both in Fredericton) for providing a collegial
atmosphere in which to conduct our research and writing. We should
also thank the many researchers, too many to name, who have shared
their stories and ethical dilemmas with us, either directly or through
their publications.
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Chapter One
Introduction
van den Hoonaard, Will C., and Deborah K. van den Hoonaard, “Introduction,”
in Essentials of Thinking Ethically in Qualitative Research, pp. 11−14. © 2013 Left
Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
11
12 • Chapter One
By the early 1950s, this approach had already dictated the sociological
impetus to study contemporary urban Western cultures, such as those of
funeral directors (Habenstein, 1954), gangs (Whyte, 1955), prisons, mental
asylums, factories, small towns, schools, and so on (Wax, 1980: 272).
In the course of time, other disciplines adopted this approach, giving
rise to a large array of qualitative techniques, each one uniquely express-
ing the tenor of each discipline: narrative research, discourse analysis,
participant observation, case studies, ethnography, photo elicitation, and
so on (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 3). Now it is common to find research-
ers in psychology, nursing, education, and social work who engage in
qualitative research. What all of these approaches share is the search for
meanings that research participants exemplify through their words and
deeds. It is an inductive approach that, ideally speaking, takes its cues
from the world of the people who are being studied. In many respects,
this approach differs widely from those early anthropological approaches
driven by the belief that there is an objective reality that scientists can
uncover, describe, and analyze. A very different scholarly world indeed.
No less divergent have been the contemporary ethical stances
towards the study of communities, groups, and cultures, whether in the
field or as expressed through text. These stances represent a whole range
of subtle hues, depending on the discipline, the researcher (including the
researcher’s own culture), the researched setting, the nature of groups
that are being studied, and the strategies of research. The “growing rec-
ognition that we cannot represent others in any other terms but our own”
(Van Maanen, 1988: 12) underscores a heightened need to engage in an
ethical conversation within ourselves lest we mistake our understanding
of others as infallible or “objective.”
It will be nigh impossible, except for a few broad principles, to outline
specifically the definite ethical parameters that undergird all qualitative
research. When one is more familiar with the ethical canons of either
quantitative or biomedical research, it is easy to be apprehensive when
being confronted with the ethical peculiarities of qualitative research.
Qualitative researchers do not claim to be exempt from the importance
of ethics in research. Although some general ethics principles do apply,
a qualitative researcher’s approach often involves different issues and
solutions calling upon other kinds of ethical principles that are particu-
larly relevant in their case. For example, a qualitative researcher usually
embraces whole groups or communities as part of her1 study, rather than
individuals on a one-to-one basis. As another example, it is hard to pin
Introduction • 13
down the precise nature or goals of one’s research—an aspect that has an
impact on how she explains the research to others.
At the heart of thinking ethically is the need to grasp the nature of
qualitative research. Following Herbert G. Blumer (1969), qualitative
researchers understand society as an “obdurate reality” because as Gary
A. Fine (1993) exclaims, society is secured in secrets, often beyond the
pale of the casual observer. We thus need a method that probes issues
more deeply. These uncertainties make our grasp of society fluid, but they
also lead every conscientious researcher to move beneath the initial sur-
face (appearance) of society.
As such, the qualitative researcher places great value on modify-
ing her research plan along the way as she deepens her understanding
of the setting. Often, there are surprising, unexpected, and unpredict-
able sources of data of a serendipitous nature. New horizons open to
the researcher. It is quite impossible to predict or anticipate the ethical
dimensions that may arise in the course of such changes. Hence, one
needs to cultivate one’s inner ethical poise, which can carry her through
the challenges of doing qualitative research in the ever-changing social
context or situation. One stands to benefit from knowing the experiences
of other researchers who have taken a similar path of research. Indeed,
one purpose of The Essentials of Thinking Ethically is to bring readers’
attention to a number of their studies.
Ethics in research does not take place in a vacuum. Ethics is about
relationships. Before considering how particular research strategies
involve ethics, we need to explore ethics as expressed through the four
main prisms of qualitative research: namely, the researcher, relations
with research participants, data gathering, and the dissemination of
research findings. Each prism calls for specific ethical obligations and
rights. We also need to provide a broad discussion of confidentiality. This
discussion involves sizing up its shape, much like one takes into account
the morphology of the ground. This last discussion concludes the first
part of this book.
Summary
Born in the bosom of anthropology as “fieldwork,” qualitative research
rose and evolved through a variety of disciplines, including sociology,
social work, education, and health research. All have their own distinc-
tive features, but they all share the idea of inductive research. In contrast,
14 • Chapter One