Research Ethics and Moral Dilemmas of Social Research in Post-Socialist Europe and Beyond

Abstract

The first two papers of this special section set the beginning of a series of workshops dedicated toexploring ethical challenges in the context of qualitative fieldwork conducted in Central and Eastern Europe andbeyond hosted by the Centre for East European Language Based Areas (CEELBAS 2009-2011). The idea behindthe first workshop in September 2009 was to give scholars and postgraduate students an opportunity toexchange their fieldwork experience relating to research ethics and practice within the Central and EastEuropean regional context. During this workshop, we realised that in addition to the need for knowledgeexchange about these fieldwork experiences, it is essential to critically engage with the seemingly universalnotion of research ethics. In particular, we concentrated on the specific question of ethical dilemmas whichresearchers face as either 'insiders' or 'outsiders' to the researched communities. Thus the issue of theresearcher's social positionality and reflexivity represent the core theme for discussion in the essays presented inthis special section.In their article Guillemin and Gilliam (2004) argued that one of the main criteria for 'good' qualitativeresearch is reflexivity. They maintained that it is necessary for researchers to be self-reflexive and detachedwhen examining their own commitments, relevant experience and social position. For them, the professionalcodes of ethical conduct, or 'procedural ethics', constituted a continuum with the microethics of research practice.Thus the ethical dimension of the research is defined by the researcher's ability to comply with ethical principles,defined at the procedural level, by reflecting on the concrete and specific microethical issues they encounter intheir research practice (ibid: 269).Feminist researchers were the first to call for a need for reflexivity about one's own position as aresearcher in the field (cf. Denzin and Lincoln 2000, Roberts 1981). Engaging in reflexivity is no longer anexclusively feminist strategy: there is a growing number of 'non-feminist' publications dedicated to issues ofreflexivity (cf. Back 1996, Blackman 2007, Murphy 1999). A few scholars conducting qualitative research in post-socialist societies have already engaged in reflections on the research process (Garifzianova 2010, Ledeneva2011, Popov 2009, Roberts 2012, Ziemer 2011). They have illustrated the use of reflexively examining thedifferent subject positions they inhabited during their research and the impact of these positions on the researchprocess.In the social sciences, generally speaking, reflexivity is understood as a deconstructive exercise forlocating the intersections of author, other, text, and world, and for penetrating the representational exercise itself(MacBeth 2001: 35). This collection of papers follows England's understanding of reflexivity as a processinvolving 'self-critical sympathetic introspection and the self-conscious analytical scrutiny of the self asresearcher' (England 1994: 2). Thereby, we place special emphasis on 'intersubjectivity' where there is'reciprocal sharing of knowledge and experience between researcher and the researched' and an understandingthat the researcher is themselves part of the production of knowledge (Shields & Dervin 1993: 67). Althoughpractices of reflexivity have been highly praised by qualitative researchers, sometimes they have helped to showthe limits of qualitative research, especially with regards to ethical practice. For example, Bosworth et al. (2011)