‘I’ll sue you if you publish my wife’s interview’: ethical dilemmas in qualitative research based on life stories

Abstract

This article addresses ethical dilemmas linked to using in-depth interviews while researching blended families in Israel, mainly during the analysis phase and while getting interviewees’ final written approval, prior to publication. Amongst the dilemmas presented are: should we publish statements that we thought might harm the interviewee even though we got their approval? Or those including pejorative statements on members of the interviewee’s extended family who weren’t asked for consent as they weren’t interviewed? We bring several types of changes our interviewees requested and demonstrate how we responded, not always successfully. Finally, we re-think dilemmas related to the complex issues of confidentiality and consent and raise questions – still open – these dilemmas generate. We discuss our own frustrations vis-à-vis the power vested with our interviewees that might affect the quality of any research when too many requests for substantial changes are done as a precondition for a written approval.