- We need to talk about ethical discomfort
Senior researcher at Nordland Research Institute , Helga Eggebø. Photo: Karoline OA Pettersen
Ethical dilemmas and gray areas in research can be tough to navigate alone. - We should talk more about our ethical discomfort, believes Researchers .
This news story is produced by the University of Oslo
Good research is based on recognized ethical norms, institutional standards, and proven methods. It is crucial that these are not only known, but also followed. But what about undefined gray areas and all the small but significant ethical dilemmas in a researcher's everyday life?
Dealing with such things in qualitative research on sensitive topics can sometimes be demanding. Other times it creates a bit of "noise" in everyday life, such as Researchers can be overwhelming to think about. Often alone.
What are such dilemmas and gray areas that Researchers encounters in their work? How does it feel to break the silence around ethical discomfort, in environments where demands for excellent research are strong?
You can read about this in a brand new book, as well as hear about it in this podcast episode from the University of Oslo.
In the recent book 'Ethical Discomfort. An honest textbook on qualitative research on sensitive topics', a number of Researchers from his own experiences in various research fields. The book describes several situations where Researchers have "messed up" or made mistakes in research on various sensitive topics and groups in vulnerable life situations. It conveys real incidents where they have experienced ethical discomfort, and shares reflections and ways of dealing with this. Often without a clear answer.
The book's editors are Associate Professor Anette Bringedal Houge and Postdoctoral Fellow Anja Emile Kruse, both at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo. Through their studies and research, they have worked on projects involving people in vulnerable life situations, and people who have been violent or have been subjected to violence by others.
– Although I believe that ethical discomfort is something everyone Researchers can and should feel, research on sensitive topics may make the discomfort feel a little stronger. Because it can be easy to make mistakes, and at the same time it feels extra important to do everything right, says Houge.
Can we separate research from life?
Helga Eggebø is one of the researchers who talks about her ethical discomfort in the podcast episode and in the book chapter Farewell to the Field: In the Span between Different Ethical Considerations.
Here she describes in picturesque detail a meeting she had as a researcher with an elderly man, whom she calls Arne. He lived in a care home in a village in northern Norway, and Eggebø interviewed him as part of a research project.
The project was about housing, aging and care. Arne wanted to talk to a researcher, but he wasn't too keen on the project's purpose and framework, says Eggebø.
Arne said that he was happy to have moved to the care home, but that he felt that he had nothing to do in the common room. He wanted to talk about society, politics and history, but there was no one to talk to. “There are so many senile people there, and no one who reads and thinks about things like I do,” Arne said. He told the researcher a number of stories from his life.
– I was a little stressed, says Eggebø. - The purpose of the conversation was not that I wanted to hear "robber stories", but that I wanted to know something about growing old and needing care.
Eggebø found that she didn't get much out of the questions she asked, but the conversation was pleasant and interesting nonetheless. They talked for several hours, and when the meeting was over, Arne invited the researcher to come back. An invitation Eggebø found it difficult to refuse.
– I probably answered it a little evasively, I was a little hesitant to promise everyone I interviewed a visit or two. I didn't know if I would have time for it.
In her notes afterwards, she wrote that it was a bit uncomfortable to be invited back. She never visited Arne again. Some time later, Arne died, and in the book chapter, Eggebø shares thoughts and reflections on the ethical discomfort that the choice she made created in her.
– We must share the ethical discomfort
'Ethical Discomfort' is a book that deals with practical research ethics. How to resolve ethical dilemmas that do not have clear answers while out in the field, in meetings with the people the research is about.
Kruse says that closeness and distance are something that recur in many of the experiences the various researchers recount in the book's chapters. For example, it can be about situations where you feel that you have gotten too close to the person or thing you are researching to be able to maintain the distance or objectivity you need as a researcher.
Or it could be that you feel so alienated or distanced from the field you are researching, or the people there, that you are unable to fully describe it from anything other than an outside perspective.
– And in those types of situations, both in getting too close and in not getting close enough, one can become confused and make choices on a flawed basis. Or become uncertain about what is actually the right way to continue the research.
The important ethical judgment
The National Research Ethics Committee for Social Sciences and Humanities (NESH) highlights the basic research ethics norms in its guidelines. The purpose is to promote these as a source of research ethics reflection and ongoing discussion in the research community, NESH writes on its website. NESH clarifies how research is increasingly under pressure, and how various actors such as clients, funders and collaborators have a shared responsibility for safeguarding research ethics.
– The national guidelines provided by NESH form the basis for the research. In order to conduct ethical research and exercise good ethical judgment in qualitative research, you as a researcher must be familiar with these guidelines, emphasizes Houge.
The purpose of research ethics is to promote free, good and responsible research and ensure good scientific practice. It is about the norm of truth, methodological norms and that research should be objective, accountable and verifiable. It should be open, independent and critical, and carried out in a professional community where people build on each other.
– The research should not cause harm or unreasonable burdens to participants, and it should be fair. But then we still experience ethical discomfort in the work of exercising good ethical judgment. Ethical judgment is not only about the formal guidelines, but also about practice and about the ability and willingness to self-reflect, says Houge.
As well as space and opportunity to talk openly in research environments about one's own practice, and to tolerate being faced with unresolved dilemmas. To be able to continuously relate to the fact that such dilemmas exist, and that there may be dilemmas that are difficult to resolve.
Major transgressions versus dilemmas and gray areas
The history of science is full of examples of how wrong things can go if one does not understand the principles of research ethics or does not take them seriously.
Researchers have cheated and fabricated data, invented interviews that never took place, and referred to questionnaires that were never sent out. Patients have died as a result of medical experiments or been seriously injured without the experiment being stopped. All examples of very serious abuses.
– We think that in the middle between right and wrong, there is a lot of interesting things happening, says Kruse. It is important to remember that research ethics is difficult, and it should be difficult. If you as a researcher find it difficult, it does not mean that something has gone wrong or that you are not doing things right.
Sharing discomfort can still be difficult in excellent research environments.
– I find that the research community is quite categorical in its condemnation of clear breaches of research ethics. It is absolutely necessary, important and right in many ways. But opening up a conversation about the less obvious, and perhaps more insoluble ethical dilemmas in our research practice is also important. Because in environments where the benchmark is to be excellent, it is not a given that one shows off or talks about one's own shortcomings, says Kruse.
– Our project with 'Ethical Discomfort' is about showing that doing things you wish you hadn't done or regret is human. But perhaps most importantly, that making mistakes, blunders, blunders, poor judgments and making choices that later turned out to be wrong is something we ourselves and others can learn from, sums up Kruse.
