Methodology
2.4 Ethical Issues
In this section I consider ethical issues posed by my research in relation to participants and my position as a researcher. I draw on the British
Sociological Association’s (BSA) ‘Statement of Ethical Practice’ (2002), and the University of Warwick ‘Guidelines on Ethical Practice’ (accessed during the planning of my research in 2010)9.
Ethics in regards to participants and their data
The nature of my research, specifically the use of ethnographic techniques such as participant observation and interviewing called for a number of ethical considerations to be taken into account during the research. Any research conducted with participants should ensure that, ‘the physical, social and psychological well-being of research participants is not adversely
affected by the research’ (BSA, 2002: point 13). In this section I will describe the steps I have taken to ensure my research has been of the highest ethical standards, first in relation to my participants, and second in relation to myself.
I took seriously the idea that it is unethical to pressure anybody into participating in research; ‘participation in sociological research should be
9Note this has since been updated and renamed the ‘Research Code of Practice’ and
can be accessed at:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/ris/research_integrity/code_of_practice_and_ policies/research_code_of_practice/research_code_of_practice2015.pdf [accessed 18/05/2015].
based on the freely given informed consent of those studied’ (BSA, 2002: point 16). In this regard I decided not to offer any incentives in return for an interview as Leblanc (1999) did, however I did offer to pay for any drinks consumed during interviews that took place in cafes or bars.
I found that by approaching people in person (usually at events) they were initially more likely to agree to an interview than when I approached people by other means, although often when these contacts were followed up they had lost interest in being interviewed. As a result I was wary of asking for interviews at gigs and preferred ‘snowballing’ techniques for acquiring contacts (see section 2.5).
When asking participants if they had any further contacts for me I often asked them to first check that the potential new contact was willing to take part before I made contact myself, this was in order to retain their privacy should the potential participant not wish to be involved. On some occasions this worked well. I know of times when my research was presented by a participant with great enthusiasm which no doubt helped garner further participation. However the easier I made it for a potential interviewee to turn me down, the harder it was for me to gather interviews, slowing down my fieldwork until I had made enough contacts to ‘snowball’ from. In this sense I was perhaps over cautious in my desire not to pressure people into
interview.
Anonymity for participants is a key aspect of ethical research (BSA, 2002: points 34-39), and will be discussed in section 2.8 in terms of the use of
pseudonyms. Participants were made aware that I would use pseudonyms in the presentation of this data through both verbal reassurances and with the use of an ‘informed consent’ letter10. This letter further explained what my
project was about, the expectations on both participant and researcher, and stressed that the participant had the right to withdraw from the research at any point, this is in accordance with both the BSA’s Statement of Ethical Practice and the University of Warwick’s ‘Guidelines on Ethical Practice’.
After the interview, transcriptions were made of each interview tape. Transcribers were recruited through my University and through contacts made during fieldwork but I ensured that transcribers never worked on interviews conducted with people that they knew. In addition to this transcribers were bound to confidentiality.
Completed transcriptions were shown to participants (except in cases where participants didn’t want to see them). They were therefore given a further opportunity to choose to remain involved in the project. Participants were asked if they wanted to make any changes, withdraw any comments or expand on anything they said. This was done with a feminist aim of reducing the power differential between researcher and participant, by allowing them as full control over their words and input into the project as possible
(Duneier, 1999; Oakley, 1981). Eleven out of the thirty-three participants responded with further comments or to reiterate permission to use their interviews; none retracted any element of their interview at this stage. The
10On one occasion I had not enough copies of the ‘informed consent’ letter and thus
low response rate was expected given the lengthy transcriptions which I was asking participants to read should they wish to make changes.
During participant observation at events where there were large groups of people, informed consent was difficult to seek. Where possible I let those I spoke to, or those in charge know that I was conducting research; however this was not always possible or appropriate. Where informed consent in private spaces has not been gained, data generated (eg. field diaries and photographs) will not be reproduced.
During my fieldwork I came across situations where the boundaries around informed consent became blurred. I spent some time flat-sharing with one research participant. Although they had read and accepted the contents of my informed consent letter at the time I had conducted an interview with them, it was not always clear how far their informed consent was given to the rest of my fieldwork. We spent a lot of time together,
socialising and sharing meals and occasionally this participant made comments during conversation which were of interest to my research. In these situations, although conversations and reflections were sometimes noted in my field diary, I felt it would be an invasion of their privacy to reveal any of the content of these ‘private conversations’. I thus treated any such passages in my field diary as lacking informed consent and kept them private.
Ethics in regards to my position as a researcher
An often overlooked element of ethical conduct during fieldwork relates not to the treatment of participants and their data, but to my position as a researcher and the risks I place myself in. ‘Social researchers face a range of potential risks to their safety. Safety issues need to be considered in the design and conduct of social research projects and procedures should be adopted to reduce the risk to researchers’ (BSA, 2002: point 8). Whilst such risks are impossible to predict before entering the field, negotiating risk as it presents itself and entering into it in an ethically responsible way is
important.
The greatest ethical challenge I faced during fieldwork was the change of law on 1 October 2010 in regards to squatting. This made it not only illegal to squat a building, but also to enter a squatted building. Given the
importance of squats as venues for Dutch punk, and therefore as sites for my research this posed an ethical dilemma: should I knowingly contravene this new law in order to continue my research?
I decided to ‘wait and see’ how this would affect the scene and for a time kept my fieldwork sites within legalised squats and other legal spaces, keeping an eye on developments in the squatting scene through the news, through contacts, and by asking participants in interviews how they felt it would affect Dutch punk.
Ultimately there were no radical overnight effects. A few squats were cleared by police– rather violently – in a show of institutional strength. However, squatters were always forewarned when and where this would happen. This meant that the majority of squats remained safe places in which day-to-day business continued. Whilst the change in law would make itself felt among the squatting community over time, the effect on my fieldwork was minimal as punks and squatters continued as before (albeit with more regular protests). As such I started to re-enter these spaces, deeming them crucial to my ongoing research.