Navigating research ethics in the absence of an ethics review board: The importance of space for sharing

Abstract

Ethics review committees have become a common institution in English-speaking research communities, and are now increasingly being adopted in a variety of research environments. In light of existing debates on the aptness of ethics review boards for assessing research work in the social sciences, this article investigates the ways in which researchers navigate issues of research ethics in the absence of a formal review procedure or of an ethics review board. Through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, the article questions the overall utility of ethics review boards. Highlighting the importance of space for sharing, the authors argue for the development of a new type of structure that takes into account researchers’ ‘ethos of responsibility’ as an adequate ethical compass for research in the social sciences.

Introduction

Ethics review committees (ERCs) have become a common institution in English-speaking research communities, and are now increasingly being adopted in a variety of research environments. All over the world, researchers in the social sciences are more and more confronted with an institutionalized questioning of the ethics of their research, as they are increasingly in need of a nulla osta from an ERC for the pursuit of their research.

The introduction of an ethical procedural review for scientific research in the social sciences has been met with great criticism. Critics have noticed that research in social sciences does not carry the same risk of harming research subjects that the medical research does (Cribb, 2004; Oakes, 2002), and that the principles guiding ethics in medical sciences are too narrow to accommodate the diversity of social research (Creager and Haldon, 2010). Research in the social sciences is rarely carried out in laboratory conditions, nor does it always follow a clear hypothesis-driven development that allows the research to be concisely and clearly explained to research participants. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the objective of the research will stay the same throughout the unfolding of the research project – which could potentially alter the basis on which participants had given their consensus. In general, researchers in the social sciences seem to struggle to adapt the principles of ‘do no harm’ and of informed and prior consent to their research endeavours. Recalling his experience in a Canadian ERC, Haggerty argues that

ethics review boards tend to be concerned with the prospect that research might damage a research participant’s reputation, finances, or relationships or upset, offend or traumatize a research participant. The range of potential research related harms envisioned by REBs at times seems to be limited only by the imagination of the different reviewers. (Haggerty, 2004: 400)

Moreover, ethics review boards may sometimes act as a deterrent for researchers who are willing to work with vulnerable populations, often causing them to abandon certain projects or to opt out of qualitative research for more quantitative approaches (Vassy and Keller, 2008).

Advocates of ERCs, on the contrary, support the argument that they may provide guidance and support to researchers in the social sciences. Guillemin and Gillam (2004: 268), for example, state that ‘research ethics committees satisfy an obvious need to protect the basic rights and safety of the research participant from obvious forms of abuse’, as they offer a ‘checklist that reminds them of important ethical issues that are essential to consider in any research process’.

In light of the larger debate on the utility of ERCs for research in the social science, and of the forms that ethics review should take, we find useful the distinction operated by Guillemin and Gillam (2004) between two kinds of approaches: ‘procedural’ ethics and ethics ‘in practice’. Such conceptual distinction is highly relevant to understanding constraints and opportunities that come with the adoption of ethical review guidelines in the social science research. Procedural ethics is concerned with ‘seeking approval from a relevant ethics committee to undertake research involving humans’ (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004: 263). As such, procedural ethics is related to basic questions about the ethical behaviour of researchers vis-à-vis work with human subjects, such as ‘Is any harm being done to research participants?’ and ‘Is the participants’ consent fully expressed prior to participation in the research?’

On the contrary, ethics in practice refers to the ethical questions that arise in combination with specific situations linked to particular fieldwork settings or to a particular research design. Even though a research project may have been approved by an ERC, the researcher may still find himself confronted with situations of everyday ‘ethics in practice’ that require ad hoc decisions carrying ethical considerations within them. Given the specificities of fieldworks and research topics and contexts in the social sciences, it is hard to imagine procedures and guidelines that can be universally adopted to respond to ‘the difficult, often subtle, and usually unpredictable situations that arise in the practice of doing research’ (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004: 262). In these cases, the ethical checklist provided in virtue of a procedural ethics approach proves to be of ‘not much help once the researcher is out in the field and dealing with the realities of research practice’, as there seems to be ‘no direct relation between ethics committee approval of a research project and what actually happens when the research is undertaken’ (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004: 262).

This article aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the nature of ERCs in the social sciences. Although it is commonly accepted that researchers in the social sciences should adhere to basic ethics principles and should consider good practices, the question of the institutional form that such ethics review should take is still up for debate. This article explores the idea that there may exist procedures and practices of ethical review that are more apt to address the ethical challenges of social science research (see Schrag, 2011).

The data and discussion presented here are derived from empirical work with senior and junior social researchers at the Institute for the Analysis of Change in Contemporary and Historical Societies (IACCHS) of the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. The Institute is home to about two hundred researchers in the social sciences and, at the time of the research, no ethics review board or procedure existed within the Institute. However, a discussion was taking place at the level of the top management of the Institute regarding the possible implementation of an ERC. This research capitalized on such a moment of institutional change within the Institute to collect the opinions and expectations of its researchers on ethical review procedures.

Based on empirical data, the first aim of this article is to explore the ways in which researchers address ethical issues in the absence of a procedure for ethical review. Second, the article addresses the question of the methods adopted by the interviewees to minimize ‘unethical’ outcomes. Third, we focus on the notion of ambiguity in the research process, and on the ways in which researchers navigate such ambiguity while striving for ethical practices. Finally, the article explores the ideas of ‘micro-ethics’ (Komesaroff, 1995) and of ‘ethics in practice’ (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004) in the social sciences to investigate how existing research strategies adopted by the researchers may lead to institutional alternatives to ERCs such as the development of sharing spaces for researchers confronted with ethical questioning.

Methods

The research was conducted among PhD students and junior and senior professors/researchers working at the IACCHS. IACCHS membership includes about two hundred social scientists and twelve centres: the Centre for the Study of the History of Contemporary Europe, the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Families and Sexualities, the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Work, State, and Society, the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Islam in the Contemporary World, the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Development, Institutions and Subjectivity, the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Teaching Practices and Academic disciplines, the Research Centre on Demography and Society, the Centre for Development Studies, the Group for Early Modern Cultural Analysis, the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Socialisation, Education and Training, the Laboratory for Prospective Anthropology, and the Space, Time, and Society Centre. The research participants were chosen based on two criteria: (a) being a social scientist working within IACCHS and (b) having a research project that included fieldwork, either under preparation or already achieved. Senior researchers who had already worked on several fields were asked to rely on their most representative fieldwork. For the purpose of this study, fieldwork was defined as ‘any research endeavour which entails direct or indirect data collection (through computer means or collaborators) in relation with human beings’. This meant that we excluded any research based on secondary sources. The ‘field’ was taken into consideration regardless of the qualitative or quantitative methodology adopted throughout the investigation. Over the two hundred social scientists within IACCHS, 49 researchers fulfilling the above-mentioned criteria answered the first part of the research, which consisted of an online questionnaire. Of these 49 social scientists: four were PhD students who, at the date of the study, had not yet engaged in data collection; 24 were PhD students who had already undertaken at least part of their data collection; four were post-doc researchers (0 to 5 years after defending the PhD thesis); eight were junior professors/researchers (5 to 10 years after defending the PhD thesis); and nine were senior professors/researchers (at least 10 after defending the PhD thesis). Researchers from the 12 centres are represented in the sample. The variety of fieldwork conditions is indicative of the diversity that characterizes the IACCHS community, as interviewees carried out fieldworks in Belgium and Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. After the first part of the study, a second part consisting of in-depth interviews was conducted with nine junior and senior professors/researchers, and a focus group was carried out with six PhD students.

Data collection and analysis

The research included two parts: the first one was quantitative and consisted of an online questionnaire sent to all of the IACCHS community. The questionnaire included forty-one questions and covered topics such as respondent’s identity, the main features of the respondent’s fieldwork, the general difficulties that he/she expected or met during his/her fieldwork (classified as institutional, related to the subject/object of study, and data processing challenges) and his/her strategies to deal with ethical challenges during the fieldwork. Two additional questionnaires were designed: a first one aimed at junior and senior professors/researchers on how they provide guidance to their students regarding their ethical challenges during their fieldwork, and how they deal with their own ethical challenges during fieldwork; and a second one aimed at PhD students in order to evaluate their level of satisfaction regarding their supervisors’ support when facing ethical challenges during fieldwork, and the way they deal with their own ethical challenges. This first part of the study took place during March and April 2013. The second part of the study was carried out during May 2013 at the Université catholique de Louvain through nine in-depth qualitative interviews (from 1.5 to 3 hours) with junior and senior professors/researchers and a focus group (3 hours) carried out with six PhD students, all selected on the basis of the online questionnaire. The in-depth interview format was chosen for junior and senior professors/researchers for practical reasons, owing to the busy schedules of a large group of senior academics. On the contrary, the focus group format was possible for PhD students because of their greater availability.

All the authors have taken part in the two steps of the study. The data coming from the online questionnaire, in-depth interviews and the focus group were analysed by the four authors. Major themes were identified, discussed and refined iteratively so as to engender a ‘back and forth from data collection and analysis and the analytical component itself’ (Mukamurera et al., 2006: 112).

Managing ethical challenges in the absence of an ethical review board at IACCHS

The questionnaire aimed at understanding the extent to which researchers at IACCHS deal with the ethical challenges they are facing in the absence of a formal ethics review board. Because of the absence of such an ERC, researchers are not formally expected to take into account the ethical implications of their work when drafting their research projects. This is true both for senior and junior researchers. With regard to PhD students, ethical issues may or may not be considered according to the sensibility of the researcher her/himself or of his supervisor and doctoral committee. ¹ The only exception to this rule is to be found in case the researcher is applying for a research grant by an institution that demands ethical clearance for the research project. ² In order to identify the challenges faced by different researchers, the questionnaire took into account the different research phases during which ethical challenges may occur – namely, research elaboration, fieldwork and publication.

The first element that emerges from the study is that all the interviews face challenges during their fieldwork that they deem exquisitely ‘ethical’. Regarding the ethical challenges during preparation to fieldwork and project-writing, out of a total of 49 respondents to the online questionnaire, 34 respondents claimed to have already faced ethical challenges with regard to the institutional domain, to obtain visas or other administrative authorizations to be able to access their field of research. Regarding the ethical challenges during fieldwork, out of a sample of 49 respondents, 19 admitted to having encountered ethical challenges regarding the psychological and physical security of the researcher and that of his or her participants and collaborators, and to have considered them to be issues of ethics. Finally, regarding the ethical challenges during publication, 23 respondents reported having encountered ethical dilemmas when faced with the possibility of publishing sensible data.

The second result emerging from the study concerns the management of ethical challenges. In fact, notwithstanding the lack of an ERC, most interviewees reported adopting a very diverse repertoire of case-specific strategies in dealing with issues of ethics and research. For example, as a consequence of ethical challenges regarding the psychological and physical security of the researcher and of his or her participants and collaborators, some researchers reported having to amend their methodological approach and tools to guarantee their own safety, as well as that of their participants or collaborators. Out of 49 respondents, 13 admitted having already considered halting their research because of the physical and/or psychological threats it posed to the researcher, their participants and/or collaborators. Regarding the ethical challenges of publication, out of 49 respondents, 13 had reported having decided not to publish, or to postpone publication of their data, because of the possible consequences it may have had upon participants in the research, or the researcher and his or her collaborators themselves. More generally, researchers at IACCHS seem aware of the negative impact that their research might have on research participants, as the 21 researchers who admitted to have considered such challenges suggest.

In general, interviewees seemed to strive to respect basic ethical principles (i.e. do not harm, and informed consent) in the face of the unpredictable and somehow serendipitous nature of research with other humans. Some of the respondents amended their methodology so to minimize the ethical impact of their research work. Such methodological amendments are often triggered when drafting the research project, but most of our respondents saw it as an ongoing process to be carried out throughout the whole research endeavour. The bulk of such work is therefore a ‘calm and distant analysis’ (‘réflexion à froid’, R3, May 2013) of the different situations the researcher may face during his fieldwork, and on the best ways to deal with them without countering basic ethical principles. Preparation for fieldwork, therefore, starts with a questioning of the place of the researcher herself, vis à vis the subject of the research, the research participants and the researcher’s methodology. Questions include ‘Can all questions be asked for the sake of the research?’ and ‘What behaviours are appropriate, and which ones are not, for the research objectives?’ Such questions push researchers to challenge the idea of the research as being good in itself, a priori, and to find fieldwork-specific ways of dealing with ethically problematic issues.

As R7 puts it, ‘research is not good in itself, it is not intrinsically good because it is research. One must think through the leaning of their own research, and the actions that are worth to take to obtain specific information’. This exercise in reflectivity is carried out differently by different researchers. Some chose to meticulously prepare their field guides and methodology, whereas others chose to carefully select their sample to avoid possible complications. Some respondents reported adopting a language and a posture that minimized harm to research participants.

One of our respondents, working in a politically polarized environment, reportedly adopted the rhetoric and the public discourse of the dominant political elites (which she did not support) so to both obtain relevant information and protect her participants (R3, May 2013). In the particular context of a field study in a judicial facility, another respondent admitted to engaging in a continuous process of self-censorship when in the field so as not to raise suspicions towards himself and his informants (R5, May 2013). Others chose to write down a few lines on the ethical questioning they were going through in the field, and to share them with sympathetic and trusted colleagues (R2, May 2013). The same researcher would go as far as to devise different possible strategies in case the situation in the field changed, and admittedly elaborated a plan B and a plan C, in order not to leave any choice-making to hazards of the field.

The diversity of these strategies shows that some researchers are fully aware of the ethical consequences of choices they make in the field. Concerns of this type were also raised by senior professors, who highlighted the importance of carefully considering what available data are to be published, and at what time. Another issue raised during the focus group concerns the participants’ validation of research results. Some researchers prefer not to make their results or part of them accessible to the research participants. One respondent motivated the choice not to present his results to his participants based on the fact that ‘once published, research results are not yours any longer and they escape your control’ (R1, May 2013). Another researcher involved in data collection for a collective of enterprises reportedly had to take great care during publication, as the data would have ‘hit the sector very hard’ (R1, May 2013). In fact, as R4 (May 2013) put it: ‘sometimes there is a discrepancy between the expectations of those who fund the research and the results themselves’ (R1, R4, May 2013). Publication is often carefully thought through, and some researchers may choose to publish in one journal rather than another to avoid particular audiences.

Ethical ambiguity

The third significant result of the research concerns research practices that are recognized by the researchers as ethically questionable but that are adopted nonetheless – be it for practical reasons, because no other choice is available or because the researcher may consider such unethical behaviour as a ‘lesser evil’. In the absence of an ERC, such examples unveil the ambiguity that is proper to research in the social sciences and widens our understanding of the ethics review process. The following paragraphs analyse two such examples.

Disguised research

Although an unacceptable practice in medical science, social scientists have occasionally engaged in undercover research. In particular, in situations of participant observation it may not be possible to collect consent from all the participants in the observation or even to just inform the participants of the identity of the researcher. The research endeavour may also be hidden because of the particular social or political sensitivity of the topic of the research. Issues of disguised research divided the respondents during our focus groups. For some of our interviewees, research conducted without revealing its purpose, or hiding the identity of the researcher, is an ‘ethical catastrophe’ (focus group, May 2013). On the contrary, others see it as a necessary strategy to adopt in order to gain access to particular field settings or information. For example, during a focus group one of our participants had admittedly disguised his identity to his research participants, introducing himself as an aid worker to gain access to a refugee camp. He reported to have thoroughly pondered the consequences of this choice, and concluded that disguising his identity would not harm his participants and would allow him to carry on the research work.

Data impact and publication

Pressure from relevant actors in the research setting may lead to data-bending in order to conform to particular interests. Although resented by all participants as a despicable practice, this was also recognized by some interviewees as a necessary evil in order to maintain access to the field setting, and thus strategic for the continuation of the research. During our focus group, one participant shared his experience regarding data publication. This researcher was collecting data on the distribution and prevalence of HIV/AIDS in one region in sub-Saharan Africa. During the data collection process, it was brought to his attention that funding allocated for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment would be significantly cut if the results did not meet the donor’s expectations. The question for our participant was whether to publish and vulgarize his data in the face of possible cuts to funds that were much needed by the local population. Eventually, the researcher chose not to publish his data.

More ethically ambiguous decisions were reported by the respondents. For example, 9 out of the 34 respondents claimed to have already found themselves in need of dissimulating or hiding the true object of their research to gain or maintain access to the field. The dissimulation of the object of the study is not only carried out in the face of local authorities or administrative fieldwork ‘gate-keepers’. On the contrary, 21 out of the 49 respondents claimed to have had to dissimilate the true object of their studies to research participants.

Minimizing risks: The combination between procedural ethics and ethics in practice

It is common for research institutions to try minimizing ethical wrongdoings by providing formal ethics review to validate research projects. However, academic research has shown that these mechanisms are often not apt for research in the social sciences. Schrag (2011), for example, sums up the main six criticisms addressed at ERCs. These are: (i) ethics committees impose silly restrictions; (ii) ethics review is a solution in search of a problem; (iii) ethics committees lack expertise; (iv) ethics committees apply inappropriate principles; (v) ethics review harms the innocent; and (vi) better options exist. In light of our results, we do not question the a priori utility of ERCs in the social sciences. However, this article also suggests that the sixth criticism, the existence of better ethics review mechanisms, has ground in the lived experiences of the researchers. In this light, Schrag (2011: 128) rightly points out that alternative ethics review mechanisms should meet three criteria: include professional figures who are expert in the kind of methodology examined and in the specific field location involved, take into account the possibility of iterative change during the research process, and encourage training and reflexivity.

According to our respondents, the main shortcomings of ERCs in the social sciences is a consequence of one of the main features of research with humans: unpredictability. Most respondents reported that ‘one cannot expect to foresee everything that is going to happen on the field, it is always different from what you imagined’ (R1, May 2013). The unpredictability of research in the social sciences engenders the need for a flexible and iterative research approach, susceptible of change during the research process. Therefore, the pivotal question is not whether the methodology is ethically sound, but rather whether it is iterative and flexible enough to allow for the collection of information and the respect of basic ethical principles vis à vis the unpredictability of the field. Indeed, both in interviews and in our focus group, researchers suggested that where flexibility responds to the changing nature of fieldwork, reflectivity allows for ethically sound and appropriate responses. Such interplay of an iterative approach to methodology as an outlet for the researcher’s reflexivity, vis à vis the practical needs of the actual field work, is highlighted by the relatively high number of participants who had to amend their methodology following ethical questioning, in particular about the safety and freedom of research participants. In our focus group, flexibility was discussed by the participants as something of methodological value as ‘you can never foresee what is going to happen on the field, it never turns out as you though it would’ (focus group, May 2013). Therefore, the researcher on the field must always be ‘flexible and reflective’ (focus group, May 2013). In this sense, methodology in the social sciences maintains an intrinsically iterative character, and stands open to the experiences and practical, emotional and ethical challenges that researchers may face. Consequently, the responsibility for the ethical soundness of choices taken during the various phases of the research project may rest entirely on the researcher. The loneliness of the research process was a recurrent theme in our interviews; as R1 (May 2013) put it: ‘Eventually, you are alone on the field, and you have to do what you believe is right’. Often, researchers must choose ‘what is right’ in the midst of sudden changes, emergencies or unexpected situation. As Beu et al. (2003: 102) highlight, ‘the integrity of a researcher’s behaviour depends on the decision that he or she makes in a situation with ethical implications. Making an ethical decision is a complex process that involves taking into consideration causes and outcomes that are often not black and white’.

Once again, our interviewees’ words bring us back to Guillemin and Gillam’s (2004) difference between procedural ethics and ethics in practice. The flexibility of ethics in practice is often neglected, or at times incompatible, with the rigidity of procedural ethics – which becomes apparent in the case of the requirement for prior and informed consent. While posed as a universal ethical principle, open and verifiable consent by the research participants, it appears from our empirical data that it does not always appear as a feasible solution, and this mainly for two reasons. First, the research topic may conflict with local authorities’ political agenda and/or clash with the interests of relevant groups within the research setting. In this case, the researcher may judge it to be more ‘ethical’ to hide the true object of the research from the relevant authorities, both at the national and local level. Second, certain topics of research may be considered by the research participants as too sensitive to be discussed overtly, as during focus groups and interviews conducted in daylight. In both cases, the wide variety of possible fieldwork settings and research topics makes it nearly impossible to draw a list of the possible scenarios a researcher may face while carrying out fieldwork.

However, researchers might aim at gaining the respondents’ consensus in a variety of ways. Consent may be gained gradually, and not as the researcher comes into first contact with the research participant. In fact, as our qualitative interviews show, consent may be obtained only when the participant is already acquainted with the research team and some form of trust has developed between the researcher and the participant(s). Moreover, when the subject of the research is considered too sensitive to be publicly discussed, procuring consent in the form of a written agreement may be impossible, as this may jeopardise the respondents’ safety and freedom. Similarly, research in rural areas often poses structural constraints to bureaucratic procedures for informed consent, as illiterate participants may not be able to provide legally binding signatures. Even when participants in marginalized, rural areas can read and write, proposing a formal document to sign may arouse their suspicion and result in withdrawal from the research. In such cases, when consent is obtained it is often received by the researcher in verbal form, and thus can hardly be recorded for further assessment.

As we have seen, individual responsibility and the unpredictability of the field in the social sciences challenge the idea of a procedural ethics as the only possible approach to address issues of ethics in the social sciences, while they reposition the researcher and his/her moral compass at the centre of the debate on ethics. Consequently, ‘ethical’ research is not necessarily research that has received the approval of a formal review board. Formal procedures appear useless without the development of an ‘ethos of research’ (R5, May 2015) by the researcher himself. In the words of one of our respondents: ‘ethics review boards cannot solve all ethical issues … can they protect the researcher from every mistake? Surely they cannot protect him from his consciousness’ (R8, May 2013).

What social sciences researchers actually need: Experience and training

As the debate within IACCHS on the need for an ERC was ongoing, we asked IACCHS members what, according to them, would be the most suitable mechanisms to avoid ethical wrongdoings. According to most of our participants, because of the unpredictability of the field in social science, an individual research ethos is the main tool that ensures that research is carried out in an ethically sound way. Two factors may play a role in developing a research ethos: as one respondent put it (R6, May 2013), ‘experience and training are the best tools to act ethically’. Many of our senior respondents shared what they considered to be mistakes during their early research experiences. Experience allows researchers to adjust to different research settings and to think through the positioning of the researcher in the field. It is often an early experience that opens the researcher’s eyes on the existence of the possibility of ethics creep. This is reinforced by the answers senior researchers gave to the question: ‘do you recall an ethically problematic experience that marked your career?’ All researchers answered promptly, indicating that the memory of such experience had indeed made a significant impact on how further research would be carried out. One respondent, for example, while researching institutions linked to the Department of Justice, reported to have witnessed what she termed ‘an injustice’ perpetrated by the police at the expense of vulnerable populations, and chose not to intervene in order not to compromise her research endeavour, a decision she regretted. Another interviewee admitted having given in to pressures from her funders to direct her research, although she found such pressures were leading the research to an ‘unethical place’. More than one researcher reportedly asked questions that she later considered ‘emotionally challenging for the interviewed’. One researcher did extended research over long periods of time with a small number of persons. His objective was to understand how their social relations might be the source of identity problems and personal and familial conflicts. He has acknowledged that, during the interviews he had led, he had often observed the respondents become aware of certain negative behaviours and being thrown back into past sufferings. As he was not a psychologist, he did not have the necessary tools to help his respondents face these difficult times, and he was worried about the possible reactions he might provoke. In short, according to our respondents, it is in the face of past mistakes that a personal repository of ethical knowledge is built, contributing to the development of a personal ‘ethos of responsibility’.

Issues of experience and training must obviously be treated differently when dealing with junior researchers and PhD students. Therefore, the sharing of their experiences by senior researchers plays a fundamental role in preparing junior researchers to act ethically in the field.

In this view, it should be mentioned that part of the questionnaire was dedicated to questioning whether senior researchers (particularly PhD supervisors) accompany and train junior researchers on the subject of ethical issues within their work, and to assess how junior researchers perceive such accompaniment, or the lack thereof. Results show that most senior researchers are aware of issues of ethics in research but do not seem to discuss them systematically with junior researchers. Out of a total of 26 PhD students answering the questionnaire, 11 claimed to not receive enough attention from their supervisors or accompanying committees when dealing with ethical issues. Fifteen PhD students reported regularly discussing with their supervisor the ethical issues they might have encountered during fieldwork; sometimes the interlocutors are academics relevant to their research work. On the other hand, in the ‘senior’ sub-sample, six respondents claimed to systematically discuss the ethical implications of their students’ research work, with two academics claiming to engage ‘often’ in such discussion, seven ‘occasionally’ and two ‘rarely’. So, with regard to sharing, our results are disappointing: only a little more than 50 percent of our 26 respondents considered that reflections on ethical questionings were shared with them throughout their training. More generally, only a little less than half of the 26 researchers interviewed considered themselves satisfied with the training received during their PhD programmes regarding ethical issues. Accordingly, out of the 18 senior researchers surveyed, less than half seemed to systematically address ethical issues with the junior colleagues they supervised.

Moreover, both our questionnaire and our interviews and focus group highlight the importance of activities aimed at preparing researchers for being faced with questions of an ethical nature once in the field. Given the multiplicity of settings in which research may be conducted, training is not considered as preparation for a particular field setting, but rather as an exercise in reflexivity and an outlet for sharing experiences.

Our interviews with researchers at IACCHS suggest that, while sceptical of institutional ERCs, researchers would favour a structurally lighter review board. Rather than a priori checks by a board on their research designs, which are often seen by researchers ‘as something to get through, rather than a welcomed collegial process’ (Murray et al., 2012), most research seems to favour an ad hoc structure that may competently assess their work. For PhD students, this may be composed (entirely or in part) by their doctoral committee, whereas for senior researchers it may comprise peers who are experts on their methodological approach and field settings. Such a committee would allow keeping the basic need for some form of ethics review while avoiding the procedural and monolithic character of classical ERCs.

However, it must be highlighted that our research results suggest that most researchers at IACCHS value personal experience and knowledge over procedural ethics review. Senior as well as junior researchers suggested that, more than ethical committees, what is needed is space for sharing experiences and gaining insights from other researchers and colleagues: the chance to be able to ‘talk about what we went through’.

In this view, it should be mentioned that part of the questionnaire aimed at assessing what formal or informal spaces and/or personal relationships researchers use to discuss ethical challenges, if they do so at all. Out of 49 respondents, 15 claimed to discuss ethical issues outside of an ad hoc institutional framework, when this exists. Fourteen respondents discuss ethical issues arising in their work with colleagues from their own institute, 12 discuss them with colleagues from other institutions, eight with friends out of the academic world and seven report to discuss ethical issues in their work with their families. Fifteen respondents also reported to turn to different persons according to the specific nature of the issue at hand and their specific needs.

The participants in our focus group highlighted how ‘the things we talked about here cannot be put on paper. There is a need for a dynamic, a space for discussion’ (focus group, May 2013). When asked what obstacles imposed themselves on the creation of such a dynamic within their work environment, the answer was that ‘it is sometimes difficult for a researcher to tell that fieldwork did not go well. This can be dangerous for his career, and it is somehow better to dissimulate …’ (R3, May 2013). From these words emerges the clash between the myth of an ethically and scientifically sound fieldwork vis à vis the multi-faceted nature of field settings. As the questioning of research ethics is left out of the discussion between junior and senior researchers, a sense of isolation and unworthiness may arise in the researcher. Paradoxically, this feeling of isolation is shared by most of our respondents. Although part of the academic literature (see, for example, Ansoms et al., 2012) questions the idea of perfectly ethically sound research, researchers often find themselves striving for an ideal that is unrealistic at best.

Most of our junior respondents reported not discussing ethically problematic issues with their PhD supervisors for fear of being considered a ‘failure as a researcher’, to be ‘the one who had that problem’. Generally speaking, the fear that opening up about ethical questioning may compromise one’s credibility and career prospects is widespread. As one researcher put it, ‘when working in a violent and dangerous environment, I hesitated to communicate to my supervisor the character of the field, for fear that she would have called me back from the field’ (R1, May 2013). One other researcher was the victim of an attempt of sexual assault by one of her participants, although she never discussed it with anyone for fear of the shame attached to the aggression.

During our focus group, one junior researcher reported not discussing questions of ethics with her supervisor for fear they would not be considered legitimate. She was doing research in Iran, which she experienced as a difficult field as she encountered many gender-related issues. However, she did address them with her family and relatives, and only mentioned them with her supervisor when they became so important that they compromised the feasibility of the research itself (focus group, May 2013). PhD supervisors are seen as bearers of useful knowledge, but they are also ‘the ones who are going to judge our work. One cannot be open about every flaw’ (focus group, May 2013). It appears clear, therefore, that there is a need for a space where questions of ethics may be addressed in a frank, open and non-judgmental manner.

Conclusion

This article capitalizes on the lived experience of a research institution debating on its own ethics review practice. In this context, we engaged IACCHS members in qualitative research to understand (i) whether or not researchers identify some of the challenges they face as ‘ethical’, (ii) the strategies they use to deal with such challenges in the absence of an ERC and (iii) what structure or procedure within the institute researchers believe to be the most appropriate for ensuring ethically sound research practices.

Three main results emerge from this study. First, most researchers are aware of the ethical implications of some of the choices they are called to make during different stages of the research process. Second, some researchers do put in place elaborate strategies in order to minimize ethical wrongdoings, even in the absence of an ERC. Third, notwithstanding precaution and awareness, ambiguity remains a key component of research in the social sciences and with humans at large.

The research results presented in this article suggest that ethics review boards are often not entirely adapted to the various and multi-faceted challenges of fieldwork in the social sciences. As Guillemin and Gillam (2004) point out, ethics review boards may be useful when considering procedural ethics, but they can rarely address questions of ethics in practice. We are not arguing for ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’. However, our results strongly suggest a reorienting ethics review procedure, so that they may take into account issues of ambiguity, unpredictability and ethics in practice (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004). Ethics review should be internal to the institute and created specifically for each case, rather than subject to a universal checklist to which all researchers should conform. The composition of such committees may vary according to the researcher (junior or senior), the methodology adopted and the specific field settings. Moreover, the researcher should be involved in appointing its members, thus to avoid the feeling of compliant alienation inherent in the bureaucratic nature of ERCs.

In the light of the prominent role of the ‘ethos of responsibility’ and of the unpredictability of field research, the sharing of experiences with other researchers also appears as a better way to make sure that professional researchers adhere to basic ethics principles when conducting research. Such space for sharing should be at the disposal of different research centres within the institution, and should have the character of confidentiality, trust and openness in order to avoid judgement.