Abstract
In Finding your Ethical Research Self. A Guidebook for Novice Qualitative Researchers, Martin Tolich and Emma Tumilty advocate a new approach for teaching qualitative research ethics. Their rationale is to go beyond mechanistic, linear approaches which focus upon the ‘procedural’ elements of qualitative ethics, emphasising instead the importance of researchers learning to be reflexive decision makers. Whilst formal procedural knowledge about ethics is important, they argue that qualitative research differs from ‘linear and more predictable quantitative research’ (p. 18). Hence, it is emergent and iterative, so requires a differing ethical skillset. Qualitative researchers, they emphasise, are ‘positioned more relationally with participants and communities and so are more likely to have to make immediate and responsive decisions to the situations that may arise’ (p. 18). Ethical education cannot focus on formal regulations alone, they reinforce, but must encompass attitudes, behaviours, skills and decision-making – the essences of the ‘ethical research self’.
Finding your Ethical Research Self positions students as active agents who solve problems and generate ethical intuitions in relation to ‘real world’ scenarios, rather than as detached critics. This reflects Tolich and Tumilty’s focus on ‘post procedural ethics’ (p. 23): an approach aimed at overcoming the widespread and problematic belief that once institutional ethical approval is obtained, researchers have ‘done’ ethics. This stance opens the door to addressing ethical issues continually in the field, not solely in the research ‘design’ phase. The approach recognises students as contributors with unique perspectives and the role of teachers as co-creators who can facilitate the growth of learners.
Two introductory chapters map out the approach of the book. The remaining 10 chapters proceed through a range of scenarios and ethical conundrums that ‘work cumulatively’ (p. 24) to traverse the ethical spectrum. Some tasks are drawn from the work of sociologists like Sudhir Venkatesh and Alice Goffmann, whilst Tolich and Tumilty also create their own scenarios and dilemmas to draw out issues that qualitative researchers may, and do, face. Eve’s hypothetical story, for example (Chapter 3), raises questions of vulnerability and breaches of trust in data collection. Venkatesh’s ethnographic work (Chapter 3), meanwhile, is used to teach informed consent and the principle of autonomy. Further tasks based on the Milgram experiments and the Stanford prison experiment explore ‘conflicts of interest’ and the importance of reference groups (Chapter 4). Across these conundrums, Tolich and Tumilty reinforce that research ethics ‘are not formulaic’ (p. 49), but are situational and must always be negotiated in the context of the ‘evolving ethics landscape’ (p. 83).
An important theme of Chapter 5 is explicating how, while ‘quantitative and qualitative research are sourced from the same ethical precedents’, they ‘manifest as separate entities’ (p. 78). Based on this lesson, Tolich and Tumilty direct readers towards distinguishing between anonymity and confidentiality, and informants (qualitative research) and respondents (quantitative research). In this way, the book highlights deeper issues of research paradigms. The multidimensional concept of consent is addressed in Chapter 7 which identifies the limits of confidentiality and maps out differences between internal confidentiality (informants being identifiable to others familiar with a research context) and external confidentiality (informant–researcher obligations). They identify pseudonyms as a flimsy form of protecting internal confidentiality and the impossibility of focus group confidentiality. Within the messy complexity of qualitative research, informed consent has limits, Tolich and Tumilty reinforce, as research projects may progress pursuing previously unanticipated paths or questions. Such issues present significant challenges for qualitative researchers which mechanistic ‘procedural’ approaches to qualitative research may fail to account for and which this book skilfully explicates. Informed consent, in this regard, is identified as ‘dynamic and continuous rather than static’ (p. 95), particularly within narrative research, autoethnography, photovoice and participant observation. Using a ‘supermarket exercise’ (Chapter 6), the authors prompt students to develop their ‘ethical intuitions’ and differentiate the concepts of broad consent and process consent.
Issues surrounding setting up memorandums of understanding (MOU) with social agencies, and ‘workarounds’ in tricky ethical situations with regard to these are also addressed (Chapter 9). Approaching research with, not on, indigenous communities is also briefly discussed here, emphasising the necessity of a two-way participatory approach. All of this is an antidote to ‘grab the data and run’ research which has been problematic and heavily critiqued in a variety of contexts. The limits of formal university ethics review processes for qualitative researchers are also addressed in Chapter 9. Specifically, the focus on individuals, not communities, is highlighted. Chapter 10 offers practical guidance for writers of ethics applications, under the heading ‘Introducing TREAD (The Research Ethics Application Database)’. This repository of exemplars which researchers can consult features sample information sheets and consent forms. This is a practical resource for novice researchers who, Tolich and Tumilty note, are no longer in the position of needing to ‘invent the ethics wheel’. Anticipating ‘adverse reactions’ and making contingency plans for unexpected circumstances and everyday risk in research environments are addressed in Chapter 11. This covers an array of incidents and ‘big ethical moments’ including protecting the researcher in relation to risk to self and to others, and codes for the safety of social researchers.
Finding your Ethical Research Self offers a creative and novel approach to teaching qualitative research ethics. The book is not without its limitations. Chapter 1 is somewhat hard to follow, diving straight in to a detailed teaching scenario to illustrate a broader point. It is not until Chapter 2 that the broader approach and rationale of the book unfolds. Critics will also note that the issue of research with Indigenous communities is dealt with relatively cursorily. There is much to say about questions of knowledge, collaboration and consultation, but Tolich and Tumilty only touch on these subjects briefly (Chapter 8).
Finding your Ethical Research Self is written in a punchy style and is oriented around practical tasks, scenarios and dilemmas used to elicit student thinking around key ethical issues in qualitative research. Each chapter features review questions and exercises with the key overarching principles: autonomy, beneficience and non-maleficence as recurrent themes. At the same time, the book addresses wider issues relating to research paradigms and formal ethics processes. The practical, scenario-based approach is an antidote to a ‘dry’, procedural approach to ethics that Tolich and Tumilty seek to surpass. For this reason, the book is relevant to both novice researchers and students, and experienced teachers of qualitative research ethics looking for a resource and creative ways to teach. In sum, Finding your Ethical Research Self provides a framework and resource for qualitative researchers who aspire to become reflective practitioners with a sophisticated understanding of ethical issues understood as a continuous process of decision-making. It offers a framework for researchers to develop skills, awareness and decision-making abilities applicable to the messy and shifting complexity of ethics within the qualitative field. In doing so it traverses discussion points across the broader field of qualitative research. In this sense, Tolich and Tumilty have produced a text with relevance beyond the novice researcher alone.
