Qualitative Social Work

This article stems from a concern that relying only on codes of research ethics risks compartmentalizing ethical aspects of research, and shutting them off into a preamble to research. I explore ways in which the practice of qualitative research ethics is presented afresh — and contextualized in distinct forms — at every stage of research. I develop three linked arguments. First, the ethics of qualitative research design pose distinctive demands on principles of informed consent, confidentiality and privacy, social justice, and practitioner research. I focus on consent — for its topicality, not because it is more important or difficult — and social justice. Second, fieldwork ethics raise special considerations regarding power, reciprocity and contextual relevance. Third, ethical issues raised by the analysis and uses of qualitative inquiry evoke illustrative questions regarding the ethics of narrative research and the utilization of research.

Implications of Institutional Review Board (IRB) decisions, especially for qualitative inquirers, may be that already marginalized voices continue to go unvoiced. Using a constructivist inquiry as a case study, this article examines IRB assessment of risk for interpretive qualitative research.

This article problematizes the slippery notion of `informed consent' and its negotiation in participatory longitudinal ethnographic research with children and young people. It does so within the context of new ethical bureaucracies (Boden et al., in press; Hammersley, 2006). Drawing upon an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded methodological research project exploring the everyday lives and identities of eight children and young people in care, the article reinvigorates the intersubjective, situated and negotiated approach to research ethics as ongoing dialogue in everyday fieldwork relations. We consider the concept of `becoming participant' to foreground the micro-ethical moments of complex and ambivalent engagements and disengagements within the research process. The notion of `becoming participant', we suggest, may provide a conceptual language of description to analyse the complex terrain of consent, as always-in-process and unfinished. Drawing upon episodes of recorded fieldwork relations, we apply this notion to explore what it means to undertake participatory research where consent is `iterative and uncertain . . . and open to revision and questioning' (Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC], 2005: 24). We do not aim to resolve this dilemma, but instead aim to invite and reinvite questioning of what it means to negotiate informed consent in participatory research with young people.

The complexity of social relations in ethnographic fieldwork makes us rightly wonder how do we come to see what is ethical or not? Trust in cross-cultural research works well to explore this issue. I will compare two different treatments of the same linguistic practice from interaction with my main informant, an Asian in East-Africa, and argue that it is important to see the action-orientation of utterances designed to achieve particular interactional ends. Failure to do so may result in analytic claims based on incomplete understanding of data. Treating the informant's utterances as a passive medium for transmission of information, makes us vulnerable to the non-western criticism of western research in non-western contexts. Rather, the action orientation offers an alternative way that makes us see talk as designed to perform sequentially relevant actions. This approach safeguards us against premature interpretations of trust in cross-cultural research practice.

The following article deals with the ethical implications of reflexive practice in an ethnographic study of heroin use in a neighbourhood of the city of Barcelona (Spain). The fieldwork was carried out during a period of historically high prevalence of heroin use (1994—5) and the analysis was extended to the year 2000. Various situations experienced during the fieldwork were analysed, and the `positions' of the ethnographer or author of the text were explored in two ways: (1) based on intersubjective components of the informant-ethnographer relationship (social categories, emotions, decision making, authority, etc.); and (2) based on the tension of `enunciative positions' (of the discourse) within the text. Among the results I can highlight are: (1) building awareness of the `enunciative positions' shown in the text; (2) the possible transformations of the subjects involved that is, of the informants, the ethnographer and the readers, and the multiple subjectivities that emerge and stand out in the specific contexts of interaction, and (3) the ethical implications of these positions.

Given the commitment expressed by the social work community towards the furtherance of social justice as reflected not only in their ethical codes, but also in their historical legacy and current statements of purpose, the question of how research can contribute to the enhancement of human rights and social change is particularly relevant for the ethical conduct of qualitative social work research. Based on literature from ethics and social work research and the Handbook of Social Research Ethics (Mertens and Ginsberg, forthcoming), the intersection of advocacy and research is examined from a transformative stance, revealing that strict adherence to the codes and/or regulations as defined by governments, professional associations, and ethics boards are fraught with tensions with regard to such issues as informed consent, confidentiality, and beneficence. In order to investigate topics that are controversial (e.g. pedophilia, drug use) and involve participants who may be stigmatized, the researcher's role may need to be reframed as a member of a team, with differential responsibilities assumed by each team member. This article examines potential ethical alternatives in which the researcher can partner with communities for collection, analysis, and interpretation of data.