Toward a vulnerable ethics of research practice

Abstract

This article considers ethical dilemmas concerning the protection of confidentiality that often arise in carrying out ethnographic research. A number of problematic assumptions are highlighted that generally (implicitly or explicitly) guide the practice of contemporary research ethics review committees: (1) ethical rules are context free; (2) there is always an ethical ‘right answer’; (3) there is an objective position from which to judge what one ought ethically to do. Notably, this is a position of emotional detachment from the situation; (4) this objectively identified ethical position can be articulated in explicit and unambiguous public language. The troublesome character of these assumptions is raised in the context of fifteen years of ethnographic research among African American families in clinical settings within the urban United States, with special attention to an ongoing relationship with one research participant the author has known for eight years. Finally the article suggests an alternative ethical framework drawn from recent philosophical work in an Aristotelian-inspired ‘virtue ethics’.

Keywords

ethnography informed consent medical anthropology narrative virtue ethics

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