Abstract
This article takes Guillemin and Gillam’s distinction between ‘procedural ethics’ and ‘ethics in practice’ as a point of departure and return for reflecting critically on a recently completed doctoral research project about political violence and terrorism. It provides an overview of the study before offering some instructive vignettes to show how ethical decision-making processes engaged with ‘in the field’ were an extension of more everyday and mundane reasoning than we may typically associate with such quintessentially ‘sensitive research’. As the final section of this article argues, it is this everyday and mundane quality to ethical reasoning which is sometimes obscured in formal accounts of ‘reflexivity’. It is hoped that this article is useful for scholars interested in the ethics and emotional practices of qualitative inquiry, as well as those researching serious violence and bereavement.
Highlights
Researching political violence and terrorism is a controversial and emotive endeavour
Cognisant of Denzin’s (2017: 8) call for a renewed and critical exploration into what counts as legitimate and ethical inquiry, this article takes Guillemin and Gillam’s (2004) distinction between ‘procedural ethics’ and ‘ethics in practice’ as a point of departure and return for reflecting on a doctoral research project exploring the trauma and harms faced by survivors of political violence and terrorism
Returning to Guillemin and Gillam’s (2004) account, précised in the introduction and used as a comparative device for structuring this article, prompts a series of critical and appreciative rejoinders. Both the ‘procedural ethics’ and ‘ethics in practice’ aspects of this research project involved the negotiation of what Guillemin and Gillam (2004: 265) refer to as dilemmas, or ‘ethically important moments’. These are not always dilemmas of the spectacular or ‘redletter’ variety where we necessarily find ourselves stuck ‘on the horns of a dilemma’ as it were – rather a much more every day, mundane and unending sort of decision-making but which requires decisiveness (Guillemin and Gillam, 2004: 265)
Summary
Researching political violence and terrorism is a controversial and emotive endeavour. My ability to faithfully promise close supervision of the data collection process within my formal institutional ethics application – including transparent information sharing between staff and myself around when and where subsequent interviews took place; arranging postinterview debriefing between staff and survivors; and sharing important up-to-date information about unfolding dynamics within and between different groups attending the charity – rested precisely on these periods of preliminary meetings, visits, observations and invitations to attend events and talks.
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