The Ethics of Talk: Power Dances

In terms of formal ethics, I gained informed consent, and for participants under 18 I also gained consent from parents and guardians. I verbally explained consent as well as using a consent form (see Appendix 3), and reminded participants during

interviews that they need not answer questions, drawing on voluntary youth work experience to make judgements about sensitivity. Thus, I tried to mitigate the issues of participants feeling pressured into participating or sharing more than they felt comfortable. Several young people did decline to participate explicitly or simply by not showing up (Morrow, 2008). I assured participants of confidentiality and anonymity. However, interestingly, many young people questioned the need for anonymity and expressed a desire for recognition through being named. I chose to uphold anonymity as I felt participants had a limited understanding of the

‘irreversibility’ of being named, the potentially critical tone of academic research, and the unlikely prospects of gaining ‘fame’ through my PhD(!). However, I recognise them by name in the acknowledgements of this thesis.

The demand for recognition links to ethical principles of avoiding exploitation and ensuring reciprocity. Many researchers (McDowell, 2001; Cahill, 2007; Meth and Malaza, 2003) chose to pay their participants, in terms of providing tangible compensation for taking the time to answer personal questions, arguing this is especially important with participants in precarious economic situations (McDowell, 2001). However, others argue that payment may distort free consent, blurring boundaries between ‘incentive’ and something coercive, and that payment can

‘degrade the idea of a common good that research contributes to, and instead transform it into another marketised exchange’ (Head, 2009: 343), and can exacerbate distortion as participants try to ‘say what you want to hear’. Taking these arguments and my limited PhD research budget into account, I signalled my appreciation and aided conviviality by providing young participants with food and drink in interviews and focus groups.

In terms of a broader vision of ethics and power in talking methods, my experience testified to the importance of power dynamics associated with social status, and also to the fluid ‘dances’ of power that occur throughout verbal methods (Gallagher,

2008; Vähäsantanen and Saarinen, 2013). The relative formality of interviews and my classed and aged demeanour meant my positionality in them could resonate with that of an ‘authority figures’ such as teachers or even the police. For instance, consent forms, using a recording device, or awkward beginnings or endings engendered ‘keenly felt’ discomfort (Hadfield-Hill and Horton, 2014). This was particularly evident in one-to-one interviews with the young men I accompanied to Kenya with Springboard. Several of them ‘opted out’ of interviews, and these interactions contrasted with their expressivity in participant observation. I often felt frustrated with their rejection of the research rather than accepting it as critical disengagement.

However, power dynamics in talking methods were not static. My interview skills developed over time: transcribing revealed counterproductively pushy or rushed early interviews (Madden, 2010), and I got better at avoiding offering positions and interpretative frames (Charmaz, 2006). That said, radically non-judgemental

openness is hard to enact in practice, as were ‘neutral’ responses when young people talked in ways I found violent or distasteful, even as I recognised many such

responses come from internalised social prejudices (Miller and Glassner, 2004). One complex dynamic was self-disclosure, which I engaged aiming to create rapport and show transparency about position (Cahill, 2007). For instance, I intentionally

illustrated the life map with personal experience to set the tone for talk about ‘things that matter’. In other instances, I mentioned my mixed ethnic heritage in an

attempt to disrupt presumptions of my ‘whiteness’, and made self-deprecating jokes acknowledging my ‘poshness’. While sometimes this lowered participants’ defences, at times it also felt like such moves reinforced difference and could be undermining participants sense of ‘expertise’ based on their own positionalities (Abell, 2006).

Indeed, one might question whether it was ethical to attempt to minimise

interviewees feelings of suspicion of my ‘whiteness’ and class background, when my upbringing has been one of white privilege. On the contrary, emphasising my uninformed status could allow young participants to claim an ‘expert’ role and offer corrections (Madden, 2010; Miller and Glassner, 2004).

Young people made use of different strategies to take control in interviews:

‘maximising’ (long answers leading ‘off topic’) or ‘minimising’ (giving short,

unrevealing answers), especially at the start of interviews as a form of ‘testing’.

Furthermore, participants sometimes turned questions back on me (Christensen, 2004). For instance, one young man, when I followed up a question about his sense that ‘God is real’, replied ‘I dunno man, I just really felt something […] You know.

Like, when did you find God? When did you first experience.... God, in a sense?’

My spluttered, disjointed response testified to his effectiveness in reminding me of the discomfort and vulnerability involved in answering some of the deeply personal questions I was posing.

Telling life-stories sometimes elicited emotional memories. For instance, one young woman dissolved into tears as she recalled family bereavements, and a young man talked with hardly any provocation for two and a half hours about his fractured relationship with his family and his time in prison. Such moments led to questions of whether research caused distress and whether I was adequately equipped to respond to participants’ psychological needs (Meth and Malaza, 2003). None of them told me of ongoing situations of violence or anything else that raised significant concerns for their wellbeing, and I was reassured by the knowledge of their positive

relationships with other trusted adults. I took every effort to treat participants at these moments with extra care, and believe that my sincere affective responses to these memories (‘listening noises’, facial expressions, welling up), as well as explicit verbal reassurance and thanks, made these moments a positive time of listening and catharsis (Meth and Malaza, 2003). This again links to issues of recognition - that participants ‘want to know that what they have to say matters’ (Miller and Glassner, 2004: 131). Some of the issues that have been highlighted in this section are

explored in the vignette below.

Lived Ethics: Positionality, Trust and Reciprocity

My pre-trip interview with Dylan goes well. We talk about friends, school, family. He expresses earnest love for his mum and cautiously reveals that his dad is in prison. After I don’t show judgement he ends up talking about his dad with gruff pride. His dad’s a boxer, his grandad too, and he says they taught him what’s right and what’s wrong. When I ask ‘what do you feel are the most important things they taught you?’ the answer comes quick and firm: ‘Never back down.’ A short pause. ‘Never back down. No matter who you are’. Dylan thinks he might want to be a cab driver, if his other idea of being some kind of engineer doesn’t work. They both seem to be a way to

make a good living, and the things that come with that. He says - ‘Everything’s just money nowadays. You can’t be a tramp, yeah, and then chat up the most nice girl… like, they… will NOT be attracted to you’.

I left the interview pleased with the rapport we created, and was surprised later when I heard he’d been excluded from school several times. In the intense whirlwind of the trip to Kenya, Dylan and I had some good interactions, but also a tense and frosty few days after I ended up playing a

‘disciplinary’ role one evening when the lads got drunk, noisy and aggressive. A few weeks after our trip, I went to meet Dylan at the recreation centre where they play 5-a-side. I’d been stood up quite a few times by various interviewees, and felt frustrated.

In the echoing sports hall I approach Dylan. I force a jovial tone – ‘how about doing an interview then, Dylan?’ - he jousts back that he will if I pay him, he’s hustling, cos ‘you’re getting benefit … I’m not at school now, I’ve gotta make money. If you give me five quid, I’ll give you forty-five minutes, I’ll tell you loads.’ I joke back, ‘do it for love not money!’ - he retorts, annoyed – ‘nah, it’s all about the money for me’. I take a deep breath, say ‘I take your point, but I can’t afford to give everyone a fiver, I’ve got to be consistent’. He answers, ‘No, you have to give me a fiver’. I am feeling a bit flustered now. His tone feels aggressive, aggressively entitled, and an unprompted inner voice says ‘such insolence!’

I attempt to make things jokey again, saying ‘stop trying to hustle!’ - He snaps back ‘You’re the hustler! You come down here in posh clothes, Armani glasses, and then you say you can’t give me a fiver!’. I say with a raised voice ‘I don’t get paid for coming down here every week!’. I claw back at my own rising emotions. I really want this interview. My data collection spreadsheet is looking so messy. I try whatever ‘rational’ argument comes out of mouth, something moralising about him having agreed to. Shamelessly, I try to use the leverage of Springboard, saying Gary has asked me to do a report. His anger is visible in his posture and face – ‘nah! YOU ask Gary to get us to do stuff!

You ask him, so he makes us do it for YOUR benefit... it’s for YOUR research, YOUR benefit!’. I shut my mouth. He carries on angrily referring to the night on the trip I told them off - ‘YOU grassed on us – YOU ruined the party!…’ There’s silence. We both turn and walk off, I’m close to tears, feeling like a research failure, and hurt.

Dylan and I never did have a post trip interview, though we eventually got to speaking terms again.

But setting down the drama in my research diary gave me a lot to consider. His insistence on the

bottom line that the research process was fundamentally for my benefit rang true with a sting. I reflected a lot about insolence and entitlement. The insolence of my own sense of entitlement to an interview, a second extractive interaction when what Dylan had seen after his initial openness was me acting like another ‘teacher-like’ adult. And yet how hard it was for me not to project insolence and entitlement onto his demand for payment.

Back in the good interview, back before the pernicious tendrils of moralising, cross-class assumptions wound their way into my interactions with Dylan and cracked our fragile communication apart – I asked Dylan how he would describe himself. He said ‘I dunno… a nice young chap’ –and ‘Don’t want to be bad. Don’t get yourself anywhere without manners’. That night, I felt pretty pissed off at Dylan’s lack of ‘manners’. But reflecting on his righteous push-back, the other version of the story is the one that needs to be told. The story of a nice young chap. A nice young chap who never backs down.

3.4. Walking the Walk: Participant Observation at Home and