ESTÁNDARES DE PRECISIÓN POSICIONAL (ASPRS POSITIONAL

The epistemological foundations of this study have led me to consider conventional research ethics as a technology of the self, a technology that acts upon my self, the researcher. I ask as Foucault (1983a) asks, what determines how an individual constitutes himself as a moral and ethical subject? By this I understand that although I must conform to particular activities and scripts established for the conduct of ethical research, I do so in such a way that I create a particular subject position for myself.

To explore this subject position, I make use of four aspects of the relationship to oneself described by Foucault (1983a), and while his project is a genealogy of the ethical subject, in this section I have sought to apply these aspects as questions to determine what has constituted me as an ethical researcher. The questions are: firstly, what is the right action to take? (substance éthique); secondly, by what mode of objectivation are my actions guided? (mode d’assujettissement); thirdly, what self-forming activities have guided this project towards the right action?

(pratique de soi); and fourthly, what kind of being is it to which I aspire? (teleologie). Each question can be answered independently, although they are interrelated.

The ‘right action to take’ (substance éthique) relates to “the material that’s going to be worked over” in this project (Foucault, 1983a, p. 238), that is, the parts of the project concerned with the ethical conduct of research. For example, proper acknowledgment of the source of ideas (referencing conventions), seeking ethical review of the study proposal, attending to the relationship with the study participants, the confidentiality of the interviews, handling the transcripts, and analysing the data.

My obligation to act in an ethical manner (mode d’assujettissement) is guided by the University Code of Ethical Conduct for Research involving human participants. However, in the day-to-day decisions concerning the data, my conduct is not monitored by the institution, rather it is self-monitored in a technology of the self. One could say my conduct is governed by the University Code, and I accept the obligations of the Code because I believe them to protect the interests of the study participants.

The practical activities that have guided this project (pratique de soi) have been in the first instance, submission of a study proposal to the Massey Human Ethics Committee in December 2003. Approval was granted in March 2004 (see appendix two). An information sheet was given to each person when invited to be a participant in the study (appendix three) and consent form signed at the beginning of each interview (appendix four). During the consent process of the first interview I conducted, the participant was not interested in maintaining anonymity and suggested her name be used in the study. In fact, with only one exception, all of the participants were happy to have their name used in the thesis. However, on later reflection when I was writing the analysis chapters, I began to understand that the naming of individuals impeded my overall purpose because of the focus it brought to the authority of the person, rather than the discourses informing the text. As Foucault (1977c, p. 138) asks, “what matter who’s speaking?”

Another form of data I collected was electronic posts about nurse practitioners made to the College of Nurses Aotearoa discussion board. These posts are in the public domain and archived on the College website and so are actually ‘published text’. However, I felt the author of each post had not written with the knowledge his/her post could be used as research data, and I did not want to post a message advising of the possibility, lest contributions cease. Consequently, I wrote to the Executive Director of the College to ask permission to use the post as data, emphasising that I would seek the permission of the author of any text before I used it in the study. In my early writing, I quoted from a number of these posts, but as time went on, I instead used the data from the discussion board to alert me to current issues that I could investigate further from other ‘properly’ published sources. As a result, the discussion board posts became pointers or signposts to the discourses I eventually wrote about. I found they affirmed my reading of other documents, and I can say with confidence, that my analysis reflects many of the concerns of nurses working in management and education, those seeking nurse practitioner registration, and existing nurse practitioners.

In the final analysis, only one electronic post was utilised in the thesis in chapter ten and was used with the express permission of the author. Similarly, a photograph has been used for analysis in chapter ten. Permission was sought not only from the publisher of Next magazine and the photographer, Stu McKellar Bassett, but also the subject of the photograph, Deborah Harris. These may all seem common-sense courtesies, but readers would not otherwise be aware of the place the College discussion board posts had to direct my inquiry if I failed to mention their importance.

The last of Foucault’s questions is to ask what kind of being is it to which I aspire (teleologie). Each of these activities, these ethical practices, has constructed me as having conducted an ethical inquiry. This has importance if I “want to have a good reputation” (Foucault, 1983a, p. 240) as a researcher and to be judged as competent by my examiners.