Ethics and power relationships

In terms of ethics, the current research followed the guidelines on ethical practice, as approved by The University of Warwick (n.d.), and by The British Sociological Association (2002). All necessary measures were taken to secure the confidentiality, anonymity, safety and wellbeing of participants, as well as my own protection.

Research participants were all aged 16 or over, the age at which young people are legally considered to be capable of making decisions on their own both in the UK and in Romania. All people involved in the research project, gatekeepers and informants alike, were advised in writing about the aims and objectives of the study, as well as about what taking part in the research implied. From the initial stages of the research, when I first made contact with potential participants, it was made clear that they could withdraw from the research process at any time and that, if necessary, the interviews could be paused or halted altogether. Informed consent was thus requested from the outset and was given by all participants in

writing (see: Appendix 3). Furthermore, all participants agreed to have the discussion recorded, although in some cases it took longer to gain their trust by assuring them that the sole purpose of the recording was to act as a memo and to reduce the risks of them being misunderstood due to poor note-taking skills.

In order to ensure the safety of participants, all names were changed. All interviews were numbered and dated and there is no document linking the number of the interview to the real name of participants. In any case, all documents relating to the research were stored in a locked cabinet and/or on a password-protected computer, thus complying with the data storage regulations that are in force in the UK. The data obtained during the research was solely used for the purpose of completing the PhD research, which involves writing the PhD thesis, and of disseminating the findings of the research through publishing academic articles and presenting conference papers. As mentioned above, participants were briefed from the outset on the ways in which I would be employing the data collected during fieldwork.

Conducting ethical research has implications that influence the research practices, the research design and, ultimately, the data that is co-produced with participants during fieldwork and in its aftermath. Complying with ethical standards of good practice involves the well-being of participants taking precedence over any other issues relating to the research. At the same time, qualitative researchers are expected to build rapport and trust with participants so that they feel comfortable enough to take part as fully as possible in the research. Yet, this relationship is built mainly, if not exclusively, for research purposes, since the actions of the researcher are instrumental – the reason why researcher and

participant communicate about the research topic is because the former would like to understand the views and practices of the latter with regard to it (Duncombe and Jessop, 2002; Kvale, 2006). On this basis, Kvale (2006) criticizes conceptions of interviews as encounters between equal partners that engage in a conversation. He argues that the concept of ‘interview dialogue’ ‘gives an illusion of mutual interests in a conversation’ (Kvale, 2006: 483) and fosters ‘a fantasy of democratic relations’ (ibid.: 482). Rather, ‘[t]he qualitative research interview entails a

hierarchical relationship with an asymmetrical power distribution of interviewer and interviewee. It is a one-way dialogue, an instrumental and indirect conversation, where the interviewer upholds a monopoly of interpretation’ (Kvale, 2006: 484). Hence, researchers ultimately engage in encounter(s) in order to produce data that serves the purpose of the research rather than (mainly) personal interests. And it is through the instrumental doing of rapport that people might feel secure enough to share with researchers experiences they otherwise, or in hindsight, would have preferred to keep to themselves (Duncombe and Jessop, 2002). Although I consciously engaged in building rapport from the initial stages of getting in touch with research participants as a way of minimising power differences (Limerick et al., 1996), I would argue that the way I dealt with the

product of each individual encounter has been in line with the trust that participants invested in me.

Taking a step backwards and reflecting on my positionality and the power dynamics within research encounters, I would note that throughout the process I have been self-aware that any of my actions could influence the well-being of participants. I have strived to be as open-minded as possible, to accept any views, in

order to understand the standpoint of participants. Nonetheless, I have found myself in situations in which I had to find a diplomatic way out. During the interview with Sergiu, for instance, he overtly manifested xenophobic and racist attitudes. His reason for admiring Nicolae Ceauşescu as a leader was precisely because of his nationalist politics. Upon being asked what system he would prefer, he mentioned a hybrid system of ‘democratic fascism’ and he expanded on the criteria of the eugenics of such a system; citizens would be selected based on several tests. It was difficult to share his enthusiasm for such a political project, yet during the interview I was as open as possible, manifesting genuine signs of interest – rather than approval. After finishing the interview, he made sure that everything was over and then immediately questioned me regarding the communist era and my views about the past. Regarding the latter, I told him, diplomatically, that I did not have a definite stance that I could articulate in terms of nostalgia or anticommunism; I was trying to accept both positive and negative views and create a complex, multifaceted view of the past, which actually described my approach. In this way, I avoided challenging his views that bracketed human rights and I also avoided deceiving him by lying about my pro-human rights stance. As for his wish that I, his peer, should act as memory transmitter for him, he thus manifested what Coar and Sim identify as ‘a perception of the interview as an educational process’ (2006: 253). Despite my insistence on the fact that I am not a historian and that my role was not to test the knowledge of the participants about a static past, several participants expressed their anxiety regarding the interview process, based on their self-perceived lack of (satisfactory) expertise in the history of the communist era. Coar and Sim caution that in peer-to-peer interviews, there is a danger for ‘the interview being perceived as

a test of factual knowledge’ (2006: 252). Moreover I had chosen to emphasise, at this cost, the fact that we were actually peers, so that they would not perceive me as an authoritative figure, but as a co-producer of knowledge, as someone who shared (some of) their experiences of mnemonic socialisation.

Despite my efforts to reduce power disparities between myself and participants, be they women or men, younger or around the same age as myself, educated at secondary school level or university level (BA, MA or PhD), as a young person doing research with young people I encountered a whole array of responses, ranging from nervous and deferential to attitudes of superiority. During our ‘discussions’, I tried to be as informal as possible, to avoid asking questions in a pretentious manner. I also attempted to be open about my own experiences, memories and my own views. I hoped to gain the trust of participants and to create a genuinely relaxed atmosphere. Karnieli-Miller et al. concur in that the sense of

security participants should ideally have stems from ‘the unstructured, informal, anti-authoritative, and nonhierarchical atmosphere in which the qualitative researcher and participants establish their relations in an atmosphere of power equality’ (2009: 280). By gaining the trust of participants, they become more at ease in the research context, and it also allows the researcher ‘to make an assessment of the accuracy and truthfulness of the observational data collected and the effects of the observer’s presence on the observed situations’ (Johnson, 1975: 86) and thus maximize the validity of the data.

My approach based on trust and openness - facilitated by pertaining to the same age group - proved to be successful. Participants were apparently open to voicing their thoughts, having accepted on their own accord to take part in this

reflexive exercise of sharing their knowledge and experience of engaging with the recent past. Apparently, they did so without being afraid that they would be judged. For I do not have any experience of the recent past, and hence no positive or negative memories of it that I might feel the need to defend during discussions. I was aware throughout of what I was not; an adult with direct social and / or cultural (direct) roots in the communist era, which helped me to capitalize on this nonidentity, as Reinharz (2010) sees it, but also realize the problems I faced because of it, as discussed above.

Although important, age is just one cog in the complex mechanism of doing research. Power relations are also based on gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, educational background, area of origin etc. (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007). As Padgett notes, the effects of these social, economic and cultural background characteristics ‘can either be disastrous or negligible’ (2008: 86). In the case of this research, I would argue that my positionality has worked more towards conducting research, and less against it. Gender, for instance, could have contributed to the shaping of power relations. Any theories regarding the potential effect of my gender on the research would only advance stereotypes and work towards strengthening the status-quo. Given that there were more female than male participants in my respondent set, had I been a female researcher, it might have fostered greater trust. However, since gender is just one aspect of a person’s identity, one could infer that any change in any characteristic would have influenced – for better or worse – the research process. There are other elements of my identity that require closer reflection.

Throughout the research I have been aware of the stigma I was carrying as a Romanian PhD student who had studied in the UK and who chose to have a say about the communist era. I could have been perceived as an outsider for not taking part, and sides, in the academic debates around the communist era. Furthermore, a number of participants told me that they were surprised by my attitude, having expected me to be arrogant, precisely because I am originally from Bucharest, from the capital city, because I was studying in the UK, and because I was doing a PhD. Layer upon layer of socio-demographic characteristics that could have worked against me did not prevent people from taking part in the research. My life philosophy of valuing what brings human beings closer together more than what is driving people apart may have gone some way to help build rapport and trust and thus break down preconceptions.

Another problematic issue was my background in sociology, and not history, which could have provided further grounds for scepticism. Encouraged by my supervisors, I held my ground, explaining that I was most of all interested in the process of memory transmission and only secondarily in the communist era, and that I was more curious about present day practices than about what had actually happened before 1989. Although some participants looked up to me, as a potential educator on the topic of the communist era, as already noted, others, and especially those participants who had a background in history (BA, MA or PhD studies), might have been uneasy about my seemingly superficial approach that did not centre on ‘facts’. Thus, power dynamics were complex. On the one hand, I was advocating an inclusive approach, manifesting a curious detachment from the emotionally-imbued debates about the communist era, on the other hand my

approach could have seemed superficial, in which case participants might have felt superior knowledge-wise.

Having had no experience in taking in-depth interviews other than the limited exercises of my UG degree, I required time to improve my research skills. Despite constant reflection on the strengths, and mostly on the weaknesses, of my approach in each encounter, improvement proved to be much more difficult to achieve. The three main difficulties had to do with interrupting participants, not providing participants enough time to think through the answers they would give, and asking leading questions, i.e. offering participants possible answer choices, in order to make sure they understood what the question was referring to. If the first problem was addressed by forcing myself to hold back, the two other issues related to much more deeply-ingrained self-perceptions. At one point, I did learn that I had to offer participants the option to further explain my question, but most only needed more time to think, which, as Dilley (2000) notes, is typical when it comes to silences encountered by inexperienced researchers. Holstein and Gubrium argue that ‘the consciously active interviewer intentionally provokes responses by indicating – even suggesting – narrative positions, resources, orientations and precedents’ (1997: 123), which is exactly what I had attempted to do, as a response to the self-perceived pressure of having to clarify my intended question. However, my interviewing skills were gently criticised by several participants who assumed they were better trained. In hindsight, such challenges of the authority of ‘the researcher’ instead of undermining my confidence even further could have been a sign of the complex power dynamics of what I was considering a peer-to-peer discussion, of my successful challenge to my own authority as researcher and building of rapport and

trust. In this way, the interview did become a process of knowledge co-production between peers with shifting power roles.

A collaborative approach that would have aimed at minimising power differences would have also involved seeking feedback from participants on the results of the research - the written thesis. However, due to difficulties in managing logistics under time pressure, I chose to rely on my ‘‘skills, experience, and ethical commitment’ in a way that best serves the research goals’ (Karnieli-Miller et al., 2009: 285). Hence, it is ‘critical adherence to methodological thoroughness and transparency that endows the research process with credibility’ (ibid.). Any misinterpretation, is, in the end, part of the result of a collaborative process and it should be regarded as such, as it has been argued throughout this chapter.