Navigating Ethical Quandaries with Close Personal Contacts in Qualitative Research

Relational Ethics

Ethical considerations associated with qualitative research can fall into two dominant dimensions: procedural ethics and situational ethics (Guillemin & Gillam 2004). Procedural ethics regards the institutionally mandated procedures (e.g., Institutional Review Board) when undertaking research involving humans, notably confidentiality, informed consent, and protecting participants. Deriving from the advancement of enlightenment ideals to utilitarian ethics, institutionalized codes of ethics often represent the moral principles of value-free social science (Christians 2018). Situational ethics navigate the specific moments in the practice of research in which ethical issues occur—the unpredictable situations that can shape a response, a research project, or someone’s life. Combined, the two dimensions cover a gamut of ethical quandaries that arise.

However, there’s an important limitation to these ethical dimensions. Both forgo the possibility of preexisting and consequential relationships in research, assuming instead that participants and the researcher are and remain strangers. These ethical dimensions overlook “the complexity of our relationships with site workers” (Ceglowski 2000, 98). Ellis (2007) thereby proposed relational ethics, encompassing the various roles, relations, and actions between people as they occur in each unique moment. Influenced by ethics-of-care (Gilligan 1982; Noddings 1984), both perspectives advocate that ethical decision making is unique to its social contexts as well as interpersonal relationships (Hewitt 2007). Relational ethics also draws from feminist ethics in articulating the relevance of the larger framework of social relationships and ongoing social life to delineate moral understanding (Blee and Currier 2011).

By acknowledging interpersonal bonds, scholars must navigate the reality of fluid relationships with their research participants (Ellis 2007). The procedural premise that research always involves strangers with whom the researcher has no prior or future relationship is not only inaccurate but can be a misleading notion in the practice of do no harm. Rather, scholars need to address the intricacies of these connections and their impact on ethical research practices and publications, including the involvement of close personal contacts.

Questions surrounding how we include close contacts in our research are slowly gaining academic traction within the study of qualitative methods—especially those used in ethnographic inquiry. Etherington (2007) explored how reflexivity helps create the transparency and dialogue required for ethical research relationships, especially when prior relationships with participants already exist, in her disclosures of working with a previous student, ex-clients, and a previous research participant. In her various works, Ronai (1995, 1997) highlighted, through first-person narrative, the complexities and emotionality of including her relationship with her sexually abusive father and mentally retarded mother into her research, noting she occupies a gray zone of ambiguity in which she must wade to make sense of herself, her world, and social issues. As her accounts sought to “bridge the gulf between public and private life [by making] intimate details of our lives accessible in public discourse” (p. 420), she had to grapple with the ethical tensions of such exposure and portrayals that she herself was responsible for.

However, the field is far from inclusive in its examination of the role and impact of close contacts to our ethical practices. As such, we reflect upon not research questions but potential points of tension that may articulate ethical quandaries when conducting qualitative research with close personal contacts. (1) How does the involvement of our close contacts in our research complicate our ethical practices by drawing attention to what we choose to observe and include, to how we portray others and ourselves, and to the creation of additional layers of ambiguity within qualitative research? (2) How can we balance prior, significant relationships with loved ones with the goals of (sometimes sensitive) research that can be implicating and releasing simultaneously? (3) How do we share our findings and stories—that may be harmful, provocative, jarring depictions of a truth—while protecting those we love and our connections to them (even if just protecting what the relationship means to us and our sense of self)?

Emergent Tensions

The following sections review common ethical themes in qualitative research from a relational perspective, notably the role of power and concerns of disclosure, the risks of recognizability, and the management of multiple identities. It is our belief that these issues that emerge in research situations are amplified and inherently complicated when including close contacts, reiterating the need for reflection on the ethical quandaries of their involvement.

Positionality Statement

We recognize that our identities contribute to our experiences and, as such, want to articulate who we are. Both of us are white women who live and work in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The first author is a doctoral student in the department of communication at a large research university. The second author is a tenure track faculty member at the same institution. We use qualitative methods of inquiry in our individual research projects and, as the opening ethnographic narrative demonstrated, developed the idea for this project following a discussion about ethics in an advanced qualitative research method course.

However, by labeling ourselves as such, we recognize that our “selves” in this sense are the product of our writing, editing, analysis, and discussion. As Ronai (1995) explained, we codified ourselves on paper in a reflective manner that required viewing ourselves and our lives as an object while simultaneously being active subjects. Despite dialogues about the written self that emerges as we read our vignettes, made judgments, and reflected (as both an internal, individual action and a shared, external process), the selves we present will never be not impure, never more than a subjective, partial picture of who we are, what we experience, and with whom we interact (Andrew 2017; Ronai 1995). As Gannon (2006, 474) noted, capturing the self in writing is “complex, (im)possible subject in a world where (self) knowledge can only ever be tentative, contingent, and situated.”

Process

For this project, we crafted autoethnographic narratives that captured our experience grappling with the process of conducting research that included close personal contacts. These narratives were reflective in nature as they drew on past research—including interviews with friends to highlight the global relationship management of international NGOs and ethnographic interactions (interviews and observations) with family members designed to uncover retirement expectations. It is important to note that these stories are solely one perspective of events, topics, and relationships (Andrew 2017).

Each of us drafted two- to three-page autoethnographic narratives that exemplified meaningful moments in our research, including when our existing relationships with the participants became salient in the data collection, data analysis, and/or writing processes. Once written, we shared the vignettes with each other and discussed them—paying close attention to our feelings, problematizing our interpretations, questioning our assumptions, and scrutinizing the resulting portrayals. These discussions allowed us to not only draft detailed, evocative, and reflective narratives but followed collaborative data analysis processes in which we discursively coded, combined, and categorized our stories into shared experiences (e.g., negotiating multiple roles). These shared experiences became the basis for our findings, which are detailed in the following section.

Challenging/Affirming Identity Anchors

One ethical quandary that emerged conducting research with close personal contacts was the management of identity anchors. This dynamic became apparent when routine identities and their subsequent social norms were put aside to subsume research-based roles. For example, when a researcher reached out to and interviewed a friend for a project, both of them backgrounded their friendship identities and relationship to highlight researcher and participant identities instead.

*****

The morning ticked toward 10:30, the time that was neatly written in my planner alongside the words “Interview with K,” and I caught myself feeling nervous—nervous to speak with one of my best friends, someone I’ve known since the age of three, someone I asked to be in my bridal party. But this wasn’t just a catchup call, it was a research interview. In this case, K was more than one of my closest friends—she was a research participant. This felt different. She was crossing over from friend to participant. And I was unsure of how to navigate this shift.

I called at exactly 10:30.

“Wow, you’re prompt” was K’s salutations from the other end of the phone—making me feel uncertain.

“Well, I have to be when it’s research,” I said. Yet my conviction at being a prompt and timely researcher felt half-hearted even though it was true. This wasn’t us. We didn’t set schedules and then keep them. We missed calls, played telephone tag, left thousands of voicemails, or proceeded calls with a flurry of texts to ensure that the other person was awake, available, alive. Ours was a truly messy 21st century friendship spanning continental US.

We sounded different on this call—our voices were slow, cautious, considerate, so unlike our normal quick, loud conversations full of laughter and interruptions. It was as if the audience of potential future readers were listening in, then and there. The line was busy with the static noise of wondering where our words will go and how far our meaning would travel. I probed K about her experiences, her leadership, her relationships—biting my lip as I did as if to stop the excess information I already knew from flowing out. I recognized names, places, stories in her responses—the poised, edited manuscripts of events I had previously heard as handwritten, first draft diary entries. Maybe that’s why the phone felt so heavy—the weight of all we already knew but could not say because this was a research interview with a participant and we were both navigating roles that we felt uncomfortable with, even though we were friends.

But it was not my place to question how she wanted to be a participant just as she respected how I exhibited being a researcher, even if we are close friends. I pictured our imaginary audience giving us a standing ovation at the end of the interview over the care we put into our performances. You’d think the conversation was natural, but you’ve never seen us tucked away—in a beachside bedroom, in a fort in a basement, in a car—letting the secrets of ourselves spill out in a frenzy.

Eventually, I had asked all my questions and given my scripted interview call conclusion.

“So is the recording off?” K asked.

“Yes.”

And the laughter, the messiness, all that had been bubbling, spilled over the phone line from both ends. The curtain was drawn, and the performance was dropped. We could stop acting like researcher and participant and resume our usual roles.

“I was trying so hard to speak slowly! I knew you’d have to transcribe this!” K said between our giggles. The speed and interruptions in the conversation picked up as we hashed out what it felt like to not be ourselves, or at least not the self we normally are with one another—to interact with another piece, another version of who we are.

Then, true to form, we spent another 30-minute catching up in quick and messy conversation, tucked away in our own corners of the world on a line that was finally private.

*****

Through the vignette, we can see how identity anchors are concurrently negotiated and managed in the case of qualitative research with a close personal contact, such as “friends” becoming “researcher” and “participant” respectively. Often, the management is through the act of foregrounding and backgrounding different facets of identities. This interaction highlights how the norms of a relationship, as the means of communicating, may come under pressure for the different parties of a relationship in order to perform certain roles. In this instance, a fast-talking, carefree friendship was interrupted with uncertainty and perplexity as both individuals considered how to act appropriately in the research setting. One hoped to create a convenient package of material for the other’s project as a form of care. The other focused on not interjecting with already-known information that could force a friend’s disclosure or reveal their secrets as a form of preventing harm. These subtle articulations of an ethical quandary signify how seemingly insignificant choices can introduce larger questions of ethical qualitative research, especially in terms of navigating identity anchors.

An underlying aspect of these interactions is the negotiation of power. The management of power dynamics during research interactions can be more or less visible depending on the type of relationship that existed prior to the research project.

Challenging/Affirming Power Relations

Another quandary that emerged during research with close personal contacts was navigating power dynamics. This tension became visible when the traditional relationship status was challenged (e.g., child–parent). For example, when a daughter backgrounds this identity anchor while highlighting her researcher role during an interview with her father about his retirement expectations.

*****

“Hey kiddo,” my dad said as he answered the phone on the second ring. “Or should I call you Dr. [Name] since this is an interview” he asked in a joking tone.

I laughed, “Hi, dad. No need to be formal. Is this still a good time to talk?”

“Yep,” he responded. “What is your first question?”

“Hold on,” I say. “We have some housekeeping to do first.”

“Oh,” he said, a little deflated. “I thought you were going to ask me about my experience preparing for retirement.”

“I am, but I need to review the consent form with you first,” I said. “It is part of the interview process. Is that okay?”

“Of course, go ahead,” he said.

I opened my computer and started reading the consent form.

“I agree,” he said a little gruffly when prompted at the end of my spiel.

“Okay, thanks.” I said to fill time as I opened up my interview guide. “Here we go.”

The conversation was moving along smoothly as I asked my dad about how he learned about retirement and what he expects when he retires.

I could tell he was getting more comfortable as our interview progressed. He became less formal and his tone lightened up as he talked through his plans. “Well, as you know, your mother and I want to travel for the first few years to see where we want to land. We want to see the Carolinas and Florida. I want to spend some time in the desert, maybe New Mexico or Arizona, but your mother wants to be coastal.”

“Mmmhmm,” I uttered as he continued detailing his travel plans. He was right, I had heard all of this before. My parents love to talk about what their retirement will look like.

“Okay,” I said as a way to transition to my next question. “Is there anything that you want to avoid as you prepare to retire?” I asked. “Oh, yeah,” he said and proceeded to share an example of a failed retirement—one of his friends who went through a divorce and is now planning to work well past the traditional retirement age. In the middle of this story, he let a cuss word slip. He immediately caught himself. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. . .don’t use that.”

“Dad, it’s fine. It is just me,” I said in a light tone. But I thought that comment as my dad continued to talk about failed retirements. It isn’t just me, is it? It is me as a researcher—as opposed to his daughter. Plus, any potential reviewers/readers who could read his words.

I looked down at my interview guide, just the clearinghouse question left. “Is there anything else about your retirement that we haven’t covered today, but you think is important for me to know?” I asked.

My dad stopped talking. There was a couple of seconds of silence on the line. I could tell that he was trying to think of something that he could add.

I broke the silence. “Dad, you can say no.”

“Oh, okay. No, you did a great job, kiddo.”

“Let me turn off the recorder,” I said. “Then we can talk for a few more minutes if you have time.”

As soon as I confirmed that I was not recording our conversation, my dad asked, “did I do okay? Is that what you needed?”

“You did great,” I said reassuringly. “I was just trying to understand your experience preparing for retirement since you are just a couple years out from officially retiring now.”

I paused. “There were no right or wrong answers. I promise.”

My dad changed the subject as he started to talk about his upcoming beach vacation. As he talked, I thought about how odd it felt to have to reassure my dad that he did a good job during the interview. I also started to wonder about his responses. Was he trying to give me the answers that he thought I wanted, or was he sharing his experience in a genuine way?

*****

Through this vignette we can see how qualitative researchers background/foreground different facets of their identity (e.g., daughter, researcher) and how this challenges existing power dynamics. In this case, an interview between a father and daughter navigated the transformation of power dynamics; when her dad interjected to not use certain material, we see his recognition that his daughter was acting in position with more capacity and influence—he was not speaking to just his daughter. Yet, she chimes in “it’s just me”—equally assuming their normal dynamics before pondering her own intent and status in the interaction. Both of them were, for a brief moment, caught in articulations of tension surrounding changes to their relational power dynamics and its potential consequences. The conclusion of this vignette also highlights how existing relationships, power, and disclosure are intertwined in the data collection process when the researcher wondered over the genuineness of her father’s responses; she was left to question if her capacity and intent as a researcher influenced her father’s behavior.

Disclosure in qualitative research can present ethical quandaries for researchers (Guillemin and Gillam 2004; Hewitt 2007). This quandary also emerged, and was complicated by the inclusion of close personal contacts in our data collecting experiences. The involvement of close personal contacts introduced a dynamic in which individuals knew more background and personal knowledge about each other, presenting new unintentional spaces for disclosure. For example, what seemed like a standard follow-up question for a researcher was actually fraught with tension and potentially misleading given that her participant was a close family friend of whom she had private information.

*****

I was sticking to the interview protocol as much as I ever do—asking the big questions, the ones that point to my research goals, preconceptions, and theories, but also allowing follow-ups to emerge naturally with the conversation. I liked giving space to make meaning and get verifications. Sometimes the questions even popped out on autopilot, a natural curiosity. This was the case when I was interviewing a family friend for a project. They had mentioned needing to step back from a previous role, and not thinking into it much, I asked:

Challenging/Affirming Ownership

Finally, the need to challenge/affirm ownership of the qualitative data and collected stories emerged as a quandary that needs to be navigated. The question about who owns the data and how to best represent other people’s stories have been discussed in past research on qualitative and ethnographic ethics (Etherington 2007; Gabb 2010; Hewitt 2007). However, this consideration becomes more complicated when coupled with existing relationships.

*****

“Here you go, the document is opened to your vignette. Just read it and let me know if it is okay.” I handed my computer to my husband who was sitting at the kitchen table in the nook.

“Do I have to read it?,” he asked, “I trust you.”

“Please, I want to make sure that the way I wrote about our interaction rings true for you, too.” As I stared at him, I realized how lucky I was to have access to one of my “participants,” my husband in this case, who I could follow-up with in real time.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh in his voice. I knew he was tired after work, but I was on a roll and was almost done writing the results section.

“I just really wanted to get your approval before inserting a vignette that includes you,” I added quickly as he scrolled to see how long the document was.

I always get a bit anxious when people read drafts of my work and this time was no different. I was still standing by the table when he looked up at me. I quickly realized that he didn’t want me reading over his shoulder, so I made my way to the kitchen and started to busy myself packing lunches for the kids. The monotony of labeling each individual food item with the kids first name, last name, and the date relieved some of my anxiety—yogurt, bananas, crackers.

“It’s good.” He said as I zipped up one of the lunchboxes.

I walked back into the nook and he handed me my computer.

“Is it really?” I asked. “Other people are going to read this and I want you to be happy with how it is written.”

“I mean, it’s what happened. I can’t wait for retirement and you can. I think you are crazy for not wanting to retire now. I still think you are going to change your mind once you hit 60.”

“We’ll see,” I replied. “Thanks for taking the time to read the vignette tonight.”

He smiled at me. “Why don’t you keep working and I will get dinner together? Do you think the kids would prefer mac and cheese or scrambled eggs?”

“Eggs” I said as I sat down at the table. “We have some bacon in the fridge, too.”

As he pulled out a pan, I thought about why I asked him to read the vignette. This research project drew on our experiences as we co-constructed our expectations for retirement. That means that the conversation I wrote about, did not belong to me, but both of us. I wanted to respect my husband—his feelings and right to privacy—as he became an integral part of my autoethnographic data/writings.

I opened a comment box in Word and added a note to explore the ethics of writing about research involving close personal contacts, because something was different about this type of work.

*****

Through this ethnographic vignette, the need to receive participant consent in an iterative manner is highlighted. At the same time the process of (re)gaining approval of the write up from a participant/husband is not easily accomplished given the level of trust that often exists between close personal contacts. In this example, the participant/husband assumes that the write-up is fine and wants to support the researcher/wife while the researcher/wife wants to ensure that the participant/husband is okay with how he and his story is represented. Their positionality as partners invited a quandary of how to care for one another, especially in the researcher’s desire to protect her husband as a participant. The desire to challenge/affirm ownership of the data creates a unique tension that needs to be managed with care in order to maintain existing relationships.

Conceptualization and Design

Set expectations and acknowledge changing roles: It is important to explain the research process to all participants, but there may be some caveats when detailing said process to close personal contacts acting as participants. We must remind them that even though they are willing to help, this is still formal research with risks and vulnerabilities. Sharing their stories and insights is more than being helpful as their words will be analyzed and considered data. Lindsey experienced this when having to contextualize the consent form process to her father. Additionally, because it is formal research, the communicative routines of the relationship may be altered to reflect new power dynamics. Jeannette witnessed how these changes occurred in her interview with a friend. It is integral to inform our close personal contact participants that we will be acting and communicating as a researcher, with specific aims, alongside our existing relational status, be it “daughter,” “partner,” or “friend.” Being clear in the process and power implications of research before collecting data might mitigate potential uncomfortable or awkward tensions.

Acknowledge relational complications to interview protocols and research design: A standardized interview protocol or research plan is often necessary for procedural ethics. However, one lesson we learned from our experiences is to acknowledge how existing relationships necessitate unique protocol. When including close personal contacts, researchers are likely to have more personal background information on their participant, and it is important to recognize this dynamic and how it can impact specific questions. First, even with background knowledge, researchers should ensure their close personal contact participants have the opportunity to describe any events, insights or opinions themselves, and ultimately have a say in their representation. Jeannette observed this in her interview with a friend, recognizing how stories she had once heard in confidence were told differently in the context of research. Researchers should not rely on their background knowledge or assumptions in planning out which questions to ask or skip.

On the other hand, going into qualitative research overlooking background knowledge can be problematic and may impact the existing relationship. Jeannette experienced this in her interview with a family friend, whereby an inattentive question put her close personal contact participant in an awkward (even if unintended) position. When not acknowledging the relationship in research design, certain questions can become misleading, inappropriate, or potentially harmful. Researchers need to reflect on how relationships can and do impact design, from specific questions to overall conceptualization to the data collection process.

Data Collection

Commit to an iterative and collaborative process: In conducting qualitative research with close personal contacts, the aim is to not only foster research goals, but also to maintain the existing relationship. As such, collecting data should be an iterative, collaborative process. Researchers need to be open to feedback and revisions from their close personal contacts, especially surrounding their narratives and representation. Rather than a “one-and-done” data collection, researchers should actively check their interpretations, such as Lindsey showcased with her husband in asking him to verify the written representation. This relational ethics lesson learned ensures the health and maintenance of the relationship is considered as integral as obtaining research insights.

Recognize different approaches to recognizability: Negotiating recognizability in data is not a standardized, straightforward procedure when it comes to the involvement of close personal contacts. Rather, there are options for how participants can embrace or protect from the chance of recognition. Recognizability is a spectrum and each individual will have different desires as to where they and their narratives fall. Our vignettes showcased different approaches. Whereas three embrace potential recognition, providing identifying details such as “K” or “my husband,” one attempts to hinder recognition and more actively protect the participant. Identifying details beyond “family friend” were removed and even elements of the research project were changed so as to further ensure anonymity. Researchers should brief participants on these options and always be seeking permission for their data do or do not express recognition. Especially with close personal contacts, recognizability is likely and participants should be informed of this implication before consenting to be involved as well as throughout the research process.

Representations

Embody vulnerability: Including close personal contacts in our qualitative research can be a wonderful experience that allows for increased access, deeper insights, and iterative interpretations that provide thick, descriptive discussions. The existing relationships we bring into our research can become a colorful convergence of personal and professional, linking our social ties to our scholarship. Yet, in order for these perspectives to illuminate our understandings, researchers must be willing to embody their vulnerabilities. Including close personal contacts calls for researchers to be comfortable in exposing their relationships and themselves in their research. In each of our four vignettes, we noted instances of nerves, uncertainty, or regret. We detailed pieces of our intimate relationships and how the research context problematized them, showcasing nuances and quirks. These vulnerabilities are often pushed aside in the representation of data, but their inclusion is important. A relational ethics approach considers the relationship through the entirety of the research process, including an honest, often vulnerable, representation as a beacon of quality research.