[Air-l] ethnography and ethics

Gloria Jacobs gjacobs1 at rochester.rr.com
Thu May 6 11:52:04 PDT 2004


Thank you Charles for your beautiful, thoughtful, and comprehensive
answer to Eero Tarik's questions. I will be archiving your response and
am sure I will be referring to it again and again as I move through my
research.

I would like to add one other thing to this discussion.  I like to think
that when I am open with people about being a researcher, what my
questions are, and what I hope to achieve, ultimately the people in the
study become something akin to research partners rather than research
subjects or even participants. It is a matter of building trust and in
turn those participating in the study (including the researcher) share
more and consequently deeper understandings of the phenomenon are
gained. 

Thus, along with all the ethical reasons so wonderfully articulated by
Charles, I believe being open ultimately results in better data. 

This is of course a postmodern, feminist, qualitative approach to
research that someone with a different ontological and epistemological
outlook would reject, but that is an old and fruitless argument.


Regards,
Gloria E. Jacobs
University of Rochester
Warner Graduate School of Education & Human Development

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-admin at aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin at aoir.org] On Behalf Of
Charles Ess
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 8:43 AM
To: air-l at aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] ethnography and ethics


Dear Eero Tarik:

Yours are most important questions - they deserve extensive and careful
response.

1.  The primary reason for worrying about ethics in research (and
anywhere
else) is to avoid harming people and violating their rights - including
rights to privacy, confidentiality, anonymity, and informed consent
(insofar as one follows medical and social science models: humanities
disciplines have different approaches - but the basic framework of
attending to persons' rights and avoiding harm still applies).

2.  The danger with "obsession with results" is that it runs the risk of
turning the human beings one is studying into means to one's own ends -
i.e., for the sake of results, researchers may be tempted to ignore the
fact that these are people they are interacting with, and whose rights
they risk trampling.  
Stated still another way, if our only ethical guideline is  "the end
(results) justifies the means" - we can justify everything from
violating basic research ethics (more on this in a bit) to such things
as medical experiments that intentionally cause harm to human beings
(whether they are the African-American subjects of the Tuskeegee
Institute study of the 1940s
- or prisoners in Nazi and Japanese concentration camps).
 
This direction of ethical reflection is called consequentialism (because
the consequences of our acts are decisive).  In its more benign form of
utilitarianism (the good of the many outweigh the good of the few) - a
researcher might justify using his/her research subjects as means for
the sake of research results that promise to benefit the larger society.
For example (real-life): Canadian and U.S. laws require researchers (and
anybody else) to report child abuse when it is discovered - hopefully,
in order to protect children from abuse.  But a utilitarian might argue
that if s/he could carry through a study on present forms of child abuse
- i.e., _without_ reporting the abuse but following it through to its
sometimes fatal ends - s/he just might discover enough about the
mechanisms and circumstances of child abuse to allow us as a society to
put an end to it forever.  
This would undoubtedly be a great good - especially for future potential
victims of child abuse.  But the knowledge and benefit would be bought
at the cost of ignoring the rights (and perhaps the lives) of current
victims.

Another approach to ethical reflection is called deontology - it
emphasizes precisely such ethical basics as rights (as well as
intentions, expectations, etc.) as decisive.  For a deontologist - such
basic rights have a near-absolute value: they must _never_ be violated -
because this is to deny the essential humanity of the rights-holder - no
matter what benefits might accrue for the larger society. For the
deontologically-minded researcher - such a child-abuse study is
unacceptable.

But even if you're more utilitarian (as - _very_ generally speaking -
more people in the Anglo-American world are - in contrast with our more
deontologically-minded friends and colleagues in Europe and Scandinavia)
- as a researcher you'll want to be careful about lurking and other
forms of participant-observation methodology.  (Annette Markham,
Elizabeth Buchanan, and many others on this list can make this point far
more eloquently than
I.)  
There are some famous cases of Internet research where such approaches
have badly backfired - e.g., from the male psychologist posing as a
disabled woman in the late '80s/early '90s to any number of chatrooms
whose participants have reacted strongly and _negatively_ when they've
discovered that a researcher has been observing them unawares. The
_consequences_ of this are bad for researchers:  many chatrooms are
basically now posted as "off-limits" to researchers.  And in a
forthcoming study, the authors show a rather direct proportion between
the size of a chatroom and its hospitality (better: lack thereof) to
researchers as
announced and unannounced.   The news here is not good for researchers
thinking about lurking in smaller chatrooms, where the behaviors under
study might be more interesting than in larger chatrooms: not
surprisingly, the smaller the chatroom, the more people (rightly or
wrongly) expect privacy and respect for privacy - and the angrier they
get when they discover a researcher has been lurking among them. The
point is that even for a pure consequentialist, violating basic rights
to and expectations of privacy may be profoundly damaging to the
possibility of future research.

3.  (Next to finally), you ask a famous question:
> And, of course, who should judge the ethics of another anyhow?
The short answer to this question, of course, is: we are.  Like it or
not, whether always right or wrong, human communities attempt to
establish ethical standards and judge human behaviors by those
standards. In particular, my understanding is that in Australia,
researchers and researcher projects require approval in some way by the
National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research
Council [see <http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/issues/researchethics.htm>] - and
our Vice-President Matthew Allen can say more about that (smile).

For its part, AoIR has spent some time attempting to establish ethical
frameworks for online research that reflect the diverse methodologies
and national ethical traditions of its members - if you haven't seen it
yet, take a peek at <www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf>.
No one is saying these standards and the judgements they support are the
final absolute truth.  But at least I would say: these are pretty good
standards for reference - first of all, because they were developed
through a consensus process within the communities and stakeholders
affected by them.  As such, they are always open to criticism and
revision - by the communities and stakeholders affected by them. Further
- after its approval by AoIR in November, 2002, this document has found
good use among researchers and students around the world, suggesting
that it has at least partially succeeded in developing guidelines that
are indeed useful and relevant to a range of research methodologies and
national ethical traditions. _Not_ that it's perfect or final - au
contraire.  But it's a good start.

The longer answer (aren't you glad you asked?):
At least when my students ask "who's to judge?", they mean to say: no
one can judge anyone else - there are no universal ethical standards -
and so judgments of right and wrong are entirely relative to individuals
and cultures. This position is called ethical relativism.  There are a
few times and places when, in my view, it's perfectly justified to be an
ethical relativist.  
[For social scientists who have teethed on _cultural_ relativism as a
methodological guideline - worry not!  While they may sound similar,
there are important differences between cultural relativism and ethical
relativism
- see the AoIR ethics document for discussion.]
But for the most part, ethical relativism doesn't survive critical
scrutiny. A. Taken to its extreme, ethical relativism would prevent us
from condemning _any_ behavior - e.g., who's to say that child abuse,
terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, rape rooms and genocide are
wrong? B. The position is also self-refuting.  The nice thing about
ethical relativism is that it tries to endorse tolerance - i.e., some of
my students want to tell those opposed to homosexuality and same-sex
marriages that they cannot condemn these behaviors because "who's to
judge" what's right or wrong?  
But this leads to a contradiction.  The relativist wants to say that
there are no ethical universals - in order to then argue that we should
universally practice tolerance, i.e., to claim that tolerance _is_ (or
should be) a universal value. (This contradiction is parallel to the
self-refutation of epistemological
relativism: "There are no universal truths" - a claim that itself
attempts to stand, however, as a universal truth.) (Fortunately, there
are lots of ways other than relativism to ethically protect
homosexuality and endorse same-sex marriages)

In sum: to avoid the flaws and risks of ethical relativism - and to
ensure that the communities of researchers and those we want to study
are able to determine the ethical guidelines for our work (in contrast,
say, with institutional and national authorities who may be woefully
clueless about what we're up to) I think it's best for us to respond to
the question "who's to judge?" with, _we_ are, rather than dismiss the
work of ethics as unnecessary or impossible.

4.  Finally:
> is wanting to immerse oneself in
> research as an active participant with the same "no rules" approach as

> the other participants unethical and is it unacceptable to the broad 
> body of researchers? Am I going to be lonely in my School of Unethical

> Research - members,
> 1   :-)
No offense intended - but for both strong deontological and
consequentialist reasons - I would hope so.  Not because I wish you harm
- but because I think human beings must be treated with respect, and I
don't want to see future research jeopardized by current researchers
behaving in ways that would (rightly) lead to anger and outrage.

I hope this helps -

Charles Ess
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury
University
900 N. Benton Ave.                          Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435

Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23

> From: ET <et at tarik.com.au>
> Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org
> Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 18:53:58 +0930
> To: air-l at aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-l] ethnography and ethics
> 
> greetings aoir'ers,
> 
> I am trying to get my head around the issue of ethnography and ethics.
> 
> As I understand it, a researcher should announce themselves to the 
> group they are researching and set guidelines etc for their 
> involvement in the study group. This is seen as ethical,  correct??
> 
> But not everyone has the same ethical stance, the same morality, the 
> same values.
> 
> I, for example, place far more emphasis on results than process - 
> others place a higher value on process.
> 
> As someone obsessed with results, I would prefer to see a person 
> immerse themself in a group unannounced and live and breathe and 
> interact with the study group as one of the participants. To me, if 
> one is studying humanity one should be part of it, exposed to the same

> experiences, feeling the full swing of their emotions through their 
> research. The obvious criticism of such an approach would be that one 
> is too involved and therefore potentially producing inaccurate 
> research. But is such research any less accurate than the arms length 
> - dont get involved - approach where the participants are wary of the 
> watcher?
> 
> Does this desire to be immersed completely, passionately and 
> unannounced make one an unethical researcher? Is such a form of  
> research bad, or is there a normal, healthy school of thought proud to

> promote itself as the school of unethical research? And, of course, 
> who should judge the ethics of another anyhow?
> 
> 
> I suppose what I am trying to ask is, is wanting to immerse oneself in

> research as an active participant with the same "no rules" approach as

> the other participants unethical and is it unacceptable to the broad 
> body of researchers?
> 
> Am I going to be lonely in my School of Unethical Research - members,
> 1   :-)
> 
> see ya
> 
> Eero Tarik
> Adelaide
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Air-l mailing list
> Air-l at aoir.org
> http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l


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