Researching others: care as an ethic for practitioner researchers

Abstract

Caring about others is a virtuous act but is it compatible, or indeed advisable, in academic research? This article considers the locus of ethical responsibility for work‐based practitioners, and considers ethics for researchers undertaking research within their own organisations. The authors argue that, as practitioner researchers, they are insiders who have insider knowledge not only of systems but also of the individuals they designate, for the purpose of the research, as subjects, and this creates for them a different ethical position than, say, for researchers able to research and then leave the context of their research space. It is argued that this context is one where an ‘ethics of care’ ought to prevail. The issue is raised of whether the ethical considerations practitioner researchers have to reflect upon ensure that, as researchers, they sufficiently take account of their position within the researched community and how an ‘ethics of care’ could be invoked to safeguard these personal and moral relations to others. The authors use the work of research students in the UK and Cyprus who have undertaken research for a professional doctorate as a case to illustrate these points.