Navigating research ethics during COVID-19 in authoritarian Southeast Asia: a feminist approach to combining online and in-person qualitative methods

Abstract

ABSTRACT In-person data collection remains the cornerstone of much critical feminist and human geography research, while online and in-person methods are rarely positioned as complementary. Conducting fieldwork during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted me to combine multiple online and in-person qualitative methods in ways that extend methodological debates in human geography. Guided by feminist research ethics, I developed a methodological approach that was necessarily flexible, reflexive, and collaborative to navigate the dilemmas of conducting qualitative fieldwork during COVID-19 and in authoritarian Southeast Asia. Inspired by Guasco’s ‘ethic of not (always) going there,’ I show how online methods can generate meaningful long-term collaborations with civil society actors and build the foundations for engaged in-person fieldwork, if the researcher chooses to ‘go there.’ In-person fieldwork can enrich online methods by providing different embodied experiences and opportunities to build rapport ‘outside’ the formal interview. These research findings are relevant as geographers increasingly turn to online and hybrid methods in a range of contexts where in-person fieldwork is restricted. The ethical considerations outlined here are important for different modes of fieldwork and across contexts, authoritarian or otherwise.