How do we know vulnerability when we see it? An approach to integrating ethical reflections into empirical disaster research

Abstract

While ethics assessments have become a standard in many research areas as well as in disaster studies, the tools used to reflect on normative issues remain in many cases underspecified. In this article, we seek to provide an example of how to integrate ethics into an inter- and transdisciplinary research consortium. Disaster research regularly engages with sensitive issues. More often than not, it deals with vulnerability, marginalisation and (lacking) societal coping capacities. Those who provide us with information are in many cases those who suffered from the events we analyse. This situation creates the moral obligation for disaster researchers to reflect their work. While normative questions certainly differ between research projects, we hold that some principles are highly transferable – particularly within the field of disaster research. The article proceeds in three steps: First, and after briefly arguing for the importance of ethics in disaster research, we present the ethics framework developed in the project. Second, we sketch out how we transferred this framework into the practical research setting. Third, we reflect particular ethical challenges we witnessed in the research process. Rather than providing a one-size-fits-all approach, we hope to fuel the debate about the reflection of normative issues in disaster research.