Global and local methodological and ethical questions in researching football academies in Ghana

Do Western researchers in non-Western countries face special situations that require adopting a unique research methodology and ethics when conducting research with children? Are methodological and ethical rules, common in the West, also valid for research with children in non-Western countries? The present article addresses methodological and ethical questions that arise when conducting research with children in football academies in Ghana. The article focuses on five main issues that raise methodological and ethical questions: access to children, informed consent, power relations, reciprocity and the use of interviews as a research tool with children. Examples derived from my fieldwork in Ghana illustrate that universal ethical guidelines may restrict Western researchers to a far too rigid framework that does not take into consideration the local context. Thus, there is a need for culture-related methodology and ethics when we conduct studies with children in non-Western countries.     

Ethnographic responsibility: Can the bureaucratization of research ethics be ethical?

Globally, ethics reviews exhibit four significant flaws: (1) they transpose institutional fears of liability onto individual researchers; (2) they presuppose a universal ethical standard; (3) they create conflicts among formal requirements, academic freedom and respect for local ethics; and (4) they deny agency to informants. The author has nearly a half-century of research experience in a Cretan mountain community that was often at odds with officialdom. This exemplifies the kind of research and social engagement now increasingly unfeasible because rigid ethical review procedures ignore local values. Anthropologists are subject to more restrictive rules than journalists, despite the discipline’s greater attention to local values, practices (including language) and concerns. The article ends with a call for global action to protect anthropology’s commitment to respecting cultural diversity, especially as it appears in the form of local (and sometimes labile) ethics.     

Cultural diversity in nanotechnology ethics

Abstract

Along with the rapid worldwide advance of nanotechnology, debates on associated ethical issues have spread from local to international levels. However, unlike science and engineering issues, international perceptions of ethical issues are very diverse. This paper provides an analysis of how sociocultural factors such as language, cultural heritage, economics and politics can affect how people perceive ethical issues of nanotechnology. By attempting to clarify the significance of sociocultural issues in ethical considerations my aim is to support the ongoing international dialogue on nanotechnology. At the same time I pose the general question of ethical relativism in engineering ethics, that is to say whether or not different ethical views are irreconcilable on a fundamental level.     

Teaching ethics when working with geocoded data: a novel experiential learning approach

Research ethics are not the favourite subject of most undergraduate geography students. However, in the light of increasing mixed-methods research, as well as research using geocodes, it is necessary to train students in the field of ethics. Experiential learning is an approach to teaching that is potentially suitable for teaching ethics. The aim of this article is to discuss how the experiential learning process in a course on Ethics & GPS-tracking contributed to the ethical awareness of third-year undergraduate geography students. We conducted a qualitative study in which we held four focus group discussions with two cohorts of students (2016 and 2017). We explored the students’ views on the learning environment in relation to ethics in GPS-based and mixed-methods research. Our findings show how an informal learning environment and collaborative learning in a small group contributed to deep understanding of research ethics. These aspects of the learning environment are tied to an ethical framework that consists of three dimensions: (1) the ethics of collaborative research between staff and students; (2) the ethics of privacy raised by the geo-technology adopted in this research case study; and (3) the ethics of the research process with respect to informed consent and data storage.     

Advancing ethical research with children: critical reflections on ethical guidelines

This viewpoint article reflects upon the recent surge of formal and institutional ethics requirements, particularly for research with children. Drawing on our experiences of researching with children and communities in economically poor contexts, we critically discuss three interrelated perspectives that help shift the focus of attention about the ethics of research in the global south from the geographical and conceptual margins to the center. First, we explore the interface between ethical research and the wider agenda of achieving social justice for/with children. Second, we highlight the ways in which research takes place within the context of broader social and personal relationships. Third, we highlight the need for researchers' understand, respect and incorporate appropriately local ethos of relationships in order to not only bridge the gap between formal ethical standards/guidelines and informal ethical practices but also promote participatory ethics.     

Children’s participation in research on sensitive topics: addressing concerns of decision-makers

ABSTRACT

Although there is general agreement about children’s engagement in social research, some researchers continue to experience challenges when seeking approval and support for children’s participation from a range of adult stakeholders, particularly when the research involves a sensitive topic. These challenges may reflect different perspectives, conflicting interests, needs or expectations. This paper explores factors that influence the decision-making of key stakeholder groups, including Human Research Ethics Committees, parents and organisational representatives. Building on the kind of objective, rational reasoning that underpins much ethical decision-making, the findings, from interviews with 42 participants across stakeholder groups, draw attention to influential issues grounded in perceptions of: the institution and researcher undertaking the research; the project itself; children’s characteristics and contexts. Collectively, such issues point to the critically important role of mutually respectful relationships between researchers and stakeholders as the basis for designing and implementing ethical research that gives close attention to stakeholder concerns.     

Feminist research in online spaces

The Internet is growing in popularity as a research site and is often framed as the next frontier in human subjects research. The opportunities the Internet provides for political organizing, making personal experiences more public, and creating spaces for a variety of voices makes it particularly relevant to feminist geographers and researchers such as ourselves. However, many qualitative researchers approach online research as though the Internet simply archives an abundance of data that is ‘there for the taking.’ Being trained in feminist research methods, we took issue with this approach, yet also encountered challenges when trying to apply feminist practices and ethical perspectives to online research environments. We explore these challenges through a collaborative reflection on our own independent online research experiences. Three themes emerge: (1) interpreting politics and visibility in online spaces, (2) researcher positionality across virtual and material study sites, and (3) subjectivity and power in online research ethics. Reflecting on these themes, we argue that the insights of feminist ethics and a feminist geographical lens are crucial for bringing much-needed reflexivity and reciprocity into online research. Simultaneously, online research opens up exciting new ways of conceptualizing central ideas within feminist research ethics, including politicization, positionality, and power.     

Taking rumours seriously: Why organ thieves matter to malaria control

This article documents what happened when a group of researchers tried to gain consent to carry out a survey for a malaria‐related research project in the Sabah region of Malaysia at the end of 2015. Within weeks, rumours had begun to spread on social media that the team were fake and using the guise of a research project to steal organs. The refusal to participate is often considered only relevant to researchers in so far as it has implications for the project itself. However, non‐participation in research is a valuable area of inquiry in its own right, precisely because of what it reveals about what lies beyond the research project. Rumours that contribute to non‐participation are indicative of the murky space of social relationships and connections that surround health. In fact, as is illustrated in this case study, rumours do not just reveal or represent this interconnected world, they also incite affect. It is within this space that bodies are put at risk of a number of health issues ranging from malaria to organ theft and it is thus here where researchers should focus more attention.     

Rapid response ethnographies in turbulent times: Researching mass grave exhumations in contemporary Spain (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Sometimes a social process under engaged research can swiftly grow out of control, in scale and complexity. Such was the case in my ten‐year‐long study of mass grave exhumations from the Civil War (1936–1939) in contemporary Spain. In such circumstances, I argue for the deployment of a rapid response ethnography, an extreme modality of both public and/or engaged research. This type of instant engagement forces the ethnographer to constantly refashion research designs; recognize and reabsorb emerging social actors and research scenarios; reinvent ethnographic presence; face unanticipated ethical dilemmas; and reimagine how to transfer our acquired knowledge and reflection in (a) multiple non‐academic formats for a myriad of potential publics and (b), in time frames more attuned to the rhythms of fast‐moving public debates and technological transformations in communications. More importantly, rapid response ethnography takes place whenever there is swift and strong public demand for academic analysis within a broader process of social, political and media controversy. In turn, rapid response research is necessarily committed to the transformation of the social and political conditions under study.     

Intervention or inspiration?: Kolam and fieldwork ethics in the Tamil diaspora (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This article explores a classic dilemma concerning the extent to which anthropologist fieldworkers may influence their fieldwork hosts. This dilemma arose in the course of the author's research on kolam drawing practices among diaspora Tamils in the UK. Kolam constitute a popular visual practice among Tamils in India and Sri Lanka, but less so in the diaspora. However, the researcher's interest in kolam practice began to awaken an interest on the part of diaspora Tamils in the UK and affect the very practices researched. Does this constitute an intervention or might it be considered an appropriate form of inspiration? The article makes a contribution to the literature on ethics and on diasporic communities, whose members, although reticent to perpetuate practices that might upset their host society, may nevertheless defer to researchers with specialist knowledge of their homeland.     

An Economic Ethics for the Anthropocene

Abstract: Over Antipode's 40 years our role as academics has dramatically changed. We have been pushed to adopt the stance of experimental researchers open to what can be learned from current events and to recognize our role in bringing new realities into being. Faced with the daunting prospect of global warming and the apparent stalemate in the formal political sphere, this essay explores how human beings are transformed by, and transformative of, the world in which we find ourselves. We place the hybrid research collective at the center of transformative change. Drawing on the sociology of science we frame research as a process of learning involving a collective of human and more‐than‐human actants—a process of co‐transformation that re/constitutes the world. From this vision of how things change, the essay begins to develop an “economic ethics for the Anthropocene”, documenting ethical practices of economy that involve the being‐in‐common of humans and the more‐than‐human world. We hope to stimulate academic interest in expanding and multiplying hybrid research collectives that participate in changing worlds.     

Breaking the Convention: Researching the "Illegal" Migration of Refugees to Europe

The study of refugees by geographers and other social scientists is, almost by definition, framed around a series of legal categories, which provide us with more or less neat categories of types of involuntary migrants. Yet the process of migration emerges in relation to legal categories and is not simply dictated by them. Thus, as legislation on migration in general and the interpretation of the 1951 Geneva Convention in particular have become more restrictive, patterns of migration have increasingly emerged that manipulate, circumvent or simply break existing legislation.
This paper examines the responses by researchers in geography and related disciplines to asylum–seeking and other forms of migration that are increasingly categorised as "illegal" as a result of recent European policy developments. Specifically, the potential for participatory and/or emancipatory research in such circumstances is explored, through comparative analysis of the ethical issues involved in radical research on a range of "trafficking" scenarios. The interaction of such research with public policy–making is also examined.     

Defining life: the ethical context for human quality questions

The links between ethics, medicine and the law cannot readily produce appropriate criteria for human quality questions, largely because ethics are misconstrued where they are not excluded; but also because the science at issue is full of unknowns. The paper surveys issues in eugenics, abortion and euthanasia.     

Evidence‐based policy: Some pitfalls in the meeting of scientific research politics (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

A current ambition in welfare states as diverse as Denmark, the UK, and the USA, is to base political decision‐making on rigorous research. Sound as this might seem the ambition has nevertheless been problematized by both policy‐makers and the research community. This article intends to draw out some general pitfalls in the curious meeting of science and politics by focusing on one particular attempt to make evidence‐based legislation in. These insights will be relevant for anthropological researchers of legislative processes who wish to move beyond a merely discursive approach to the study of policy and politics.     

The ‘voices’ of children: de‐centring empowering research relations

This paper examines some problematic methodological and ethical issues associated with in‐depth qualitative research with children. The discussion has wider resonance for qualitative studies of young people in ‘rural’ contexts. Particular ethical issues arise when researching with children, which are underpinned by children's relative powerlessness in society. With this in mind, the paper considers substantive strategies to promote ‘empowering research relations’, drawing upon an empirical study with children in primary school spaces. Re‐theorisations of identities and power as fractured, dynamic and contextual, suggest that research is comprised of specific moments or ‘research performances’. It is argued that developing empowering research relations involves negotiating such performances in ways that contest, or transform, dominant societal relations between children and adults. In this paper, I consider some of the specific, embodied performances involved in my research, to expose some of the complexities of power relations and negotiations within space. Bringing to light particular moments emphasises that power relations between children and adults are not reducible to the powerless and the powerful. It is also demonstrated that research performances are influenced and constrained by expectations placed upon adult and child practices in society and institutional spaces, and by researchers' own unconscious reproduction of dominant identities.     

Hydraulically fractured: Unconventional gas and anthropology (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The predicted increase in unconventional gas production is set to change global energy and concomitant geopolitical relations. The scale and required infrastructure of unconventional gas extraction result in profound changes in the landscape where extraction and processing take place. Widespread public concerns about the impacts of this industry have emerged, particularly with regard to fracking, surface and subterranean water contamination, air pollution and a host of other environmental issues, as well as social impacts and health risks. This article sets out some of the emerging anthropological engagements with unconventional gas and fracking, including analyses of materiality, politics, discourses, rights, risk and knowledge.     

Challenges and Opportunities in Cross-cultural Geographic Inquiry

While qualitative fieldwork in cross-cultural settings is central to human geography, there has been limited focus in the literature on the expectations and skills required to succeed as a field researcher in this area. Some practical advice is available for researchers who are new to cross-cultural fieldwork (e.g. graduate students, junior faculty members) and for advisers preparing young academics for such endeavours; however, themes are often treated individually rather than as a collective whole. This paper provides suggestions for novice field researchers by drawing on the experiences of four female graduate students engaged in qualitative geographic research. It identifies some major issues that influence the feasibility and efficacy of cross-cultural fieldwork, and provides practical suggestions to help prospective researchers plan for and implement field-based research projects in these contexts.     

Is Q for you?: using Q methodology within geographical and pedagogical research

Q methodology is receiving growing interest as a research technique. Its use of factor analysis and a well-defined methodological approach may appeal to quantitative researchers who need to investigate issues more commonly associated with qualitative techniques. Such issues frequently arise when investigating student learning. This paper suggests that, appropriately used, Q is a methodology to be embraced by quantitative and qualitative researchers alike. Drawing on work within the field of education, as well as two case studies, the method's utility is illustrated, and Q is suggested as another potential method for investigating the subjective views of our students.     

Consuming Ethics: Articulating the Subjects and Spaces of Ethical Consumption

Geography's debates about how to maintain a sense of morally responsible action often emphasise the problematic nature of caring at a distance, and take for granted particular kinds of moral selfhood in which responsibility is bound into notions of human agency that emphasise knowledge and recognition. Taking commodity consumption as a field in which the ethics, morality, and politics of responsibility has been problematised, we argue that existing research on consumption fails to register the full complexity of the practices, motivations and mechanisms through which the working-up of moral selves is undertaken in relation to consumption practices. Rather than assuming that ethical decision‐making works through the rational calculation of obligations, we conceptualise the emergence of ethical consumption as ways in which everyday practical moral dispositions are re‐articulated by policies, campaigns and practices that enlist ordinary people into broader projects of social change. Ethical consumption, then, involves both a governing of consumption and a governing of the consuming self. Using the example of Traidcraft , we present a detailed examination of one particular context in which self‐consciously ethical consumption is mediated, suggesting that ethical consumption can be understood as opening up ethical and political considerations in new combinations. We therefore argue for the importance of the growth of ethical consumption as a new terrain of political action, while also emphasising the grounds upon which ethical consumption can be opened up to normative critique.