El diseño de los distritos electorales o Gerrymandering

In this section I discuss ethical issues for conducting research in the VTS office in India and consider there is much more to ethics than seeking compliance with the University Institutional Review Board (see Christians 2005). VTS operators can be considered vulnerable by virtue of their low rank and status in the port (for seafarers as a vulnerable group, see, Walters and Bailey 2013). In an ethnographic study in the workplace, due attention needs to be paid to the ethical conduct of the research at all stages. I commenced fieldwork after obtaining approval from the Cardiff School of Social Science School Research Ethical Committee (SOCSI-SREC 2004) (see appendix 1, p. 290). I followed the British Sociological Association’s (BSA) ethical guidelines which promote best practise in research (BRITSOC 2002). I went beyond following

50 The references have not been explicitly cited for preserving anonymity.

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ethics in letter to being ethical in spirit. I made clear that the decision to participate in the research was voluntary and even after entering the project the participants could leave the research at any time of their choosing (Information sheet, appendix 5, p. 295). I sought informed consent and voluntary participation from all the VTS operators and recorded it in my field notes. The cultural challenge of obtaining informed consent needed to be addressed as research participants from outside the United States of America and Europe may be apprehensive about making a permanent mark on paper and wonder about what they are committing themselves to or signing away (see Marshall and Rossman 2006, p. 89). While I had designed the ‘informed consent form’ (appendix 6, p. 296), in the field I decided against its use, as it appeared insulting in the face of the magnanimity of the VTS operators. I gave the project information sheet to all participants, discussed my work with them and recorded their consent in my field notes. No physical, material or emotional harm to the participants was anticipated resulting from my research and I weaved ethics throughout the research process to ensure the conduct of an ethical study.

I followed the ethical principles of non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy/self-determination and justice in my research (see Beauchamp et al. 1982; Murphy and Dingwall 2007). I built ethical safeguards in my project to protect the research participants. I ensured informed and voluntary participation (see Hopf 2004b), anonymised the port facility, the VTS operators, the pilots as well as the ships calling at the port. One VTS operator wanted me to write his name in my report and said, “likho, likho, mera naam likho” (translation – “write, write, write my name”). However, it was my responsibility to protect identities and therefore I made no mention of names anywhere in my research (see Silverman 2006c). In addition to ensuring confidentiality, I built trust in my interactions with the VTS operators (see Ryen 2011) as they openly spoke to me about anything they wanted to, including their apprehensions. Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) discusses research ethics under five headings – informed consent, privacy, harm, exploitation and consequences for future research. A charge levelled against researchers is that at times participants are exploited for the research purpose. Both research participants and the researcher may experience harm during the course of the research and harm may follow the participants at a much later date with the publication of the research. Sensitive portrayal and anonymisation would guard against any possible breach of privacy and harm to the research participants. My research was not exploitative as it observed the institutional work of the VTS operators, which they would have continued to do irrespective of my presence. Past experience of unethical research may bar future access for research colleagues and I ensured I

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conducted the research with due sensitivity to ethics. I faced challenges in anonymising the research material. I built layers of anonymity in the data in line with research ethics – I anonymised the Indian port facilities by giving them fictitious pseudonyms of MahaDevi and Sagar. I gave pseudonyms to VTS operators and anonymised the ID codes of pilots. I gave pseudonyms to all the ships mentioned in the thesis. I anonymised the names of anchorages and landmarks mentioned in the transcript excerpts and I anonymised pictures and diagrams prior to use. As far as practicable I have ensured ethical safeguards by anonymising the research material through. Literature on elite interviewing has looked at the challenges of interviewing unique individuals who stand a chance of being identified (Delaney 2007). This could be the case for the senior officers of MahaDevi, however I have sincerely endeavoured to protect identities of all individuals in the research by building layers of anonymity around them. This thesis would be lodged in the Cardiff University library which would further serve as a deterrent to ascertaining the identification of research participants. Research ethics need to be followed in spirit, in doing so, the researcher respects the participants, conducts ethically sound research and gains the respect of participants and gatekeepers alike. Several prosaic reasons have been discussed above for the conduct of ethical research, however, ethics are integral to the fabric of the research itself.

3.6 Conclusion

The methods chapter helps put in action, plans for the design and the conduct of research. The chapter justifies the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of my study to link theory and research questions with data generation methods. The evolution of the research from site visits, to a pilot, to the main research study is reflexively discussed. The main study has been discussed at length wherein I engage with the research techniques used for data generation along with the technical issues of generating and preserving raw data. Data analysis from an ethnomethodological perspective is discussed and it is argued that the chosen mixed methods of ethnomethodology, ethnography and conversation analysis are true to the research focus of an ethnomethodological workplace study. The probable impact of my gender on the field role and relationships is also explored in the chapter. Quality of the research with respect to the criterion of validity and credibility is discussed to demonstrate research scholarship and the sound foundations of the study. Research ethics are also discussed with respect to several ethical principles. Chapter 4, the first of the findings chapters, follows – it introduces the MahaDevi harbour, locates the key social actors at the scene and highlights the cacophonic bedlam of the marine radio that greets the uninitiated.

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