1. INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods November 10, 2009
Research Ethics

2. Tuskegee Syphilis Study
A little bit of history
[Source: University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health, Minority Health Archive]

3. Failures of Informed Consent
Benefits of the research certainly did not outweigh risks to the participants
Not informed
That they were participating in a study
About their health status
Deceived into believing they were receiving treatment
Not given the option to quit participation

4. Basic Principles Respect for persons
Beneficence – maximize benefits and minimize possible harms
Justice
[source: USHMM]

5. Translating principles into ethical research practice
Informed consent
describe the aims of the research project in understandable language
Give the option not to participate or to quit at any time
Give the option to decline to answer questions
Assessment of Risks and Benefits
Publication Practices – using pseudonyms
Selection of Subjects

6. The Tearoom Trade The question of covert observation
Does the intentions the researcher has for the knowledge generated matter? (i.e. for liberatory purposes)

7. Ethnography and Informed Consent
Field settings:
Impossibility of informing everyone in a natural setting
Intrusiveness of introducing this legalistic step into a field setting
How voluntary could it be?
Long-term and participatory research:
Developing relationships/friendship with those you are studying
Participants let down their guard, forget your role over time

8. Ethics and Allegiances
Managing overlapping roles and relationships
Colleagues and Professional Community
Funding bodies
Gatekeepers to the site
Research participants
The public
Ethical dilemmas - No “right” decision, only a decision that is more right. Subject to debate and very possible to legitimately disagree.

9. Online Ethics
Association of Internet Researchers -
Is there a site policy?
Who is the author of this online material?
Can this site/chatroom be considered a public space?
Unique capacity for lurking

10. Some other cases
observing and taking notes on behavior in a coffee shop
take a job at a corporation in order to study it, various forms of ‘undercover’ or exposé journalism
‘lurking’ in an online discussion group, copying and analyzing posts made to the group without the writers consent
being paid by the CIA to collect information for them while doing anthropological research [
Issues around overt vs. covert observation (informed consent)
Whether we are talking about public vs. private spaces