Influencia de las características composicionales de la roca

Ethical research is concerned with the principle of right and wrong in conducting research (Gallagher, 2009) and, like two sides of a coin, methodology and ethics are intimately connected: “ethically sound techniques can add to the value of

research,” conversely, “methodological soundness may improve the ethics of

research” (Thomas and O’Kane, 1998:336). In relation to children, it is important to understand children as ‘inhabiting risky spaces’ (Danby and Farrell, 2004) and therefore, as Hood and colleagues (1996) have suggested, doing research with children has to be always understood as a risky enterprise. This study therefore strictly holds the ethics of doing research with children throughout the research process. This is to ensure that the interests of the children involved in the study remain at the centre and, at the same time, the quality of the research is maintained. During fieldwork, this study informed the children of their rights to become

involved in the research, including giving an opportunity to children to take time to make a decision about their participation in the study. Likewise, this study

acknowledged the rights of the children to refuse to answer some questions and to withdraw their participation at any step of the study – although none of the

children did so.

This study was concerned with crucial issues that might arise and need to be handled in relation to the ethics of doing research with child workers in Indonesia. Ethical challenges in doing research exist across global north and global south contexts in common and universal forms (Clacherty and Donald, 2007; Porter et al., 2010). However, the major theme in ethics in research with children in the global south is the importance of context in applying ethics from the global north, including the difficulties and challenges of the implementation (Abebe, 2009b; Young and Barrett, 2001), as I explain below. At the first step, I applied for ethical approval from the Ethics Committee in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of York, to ensure that the study is ethically appropriate. Throughout the study, I have considered some crucial issues to be handled carefully

in relation to ethical research with children, specifically: consent, anonymity and confidentiality, harm/risk, data security, and return for participation.

Consent

One of the common features of the research processes is to obtain consent from children and their parents/caregivers (Powell, et al., 2011) or sometimes from the wider family and community (Suaalii and Mavoa, 2001). Informed consent works on four main principles (Gallagher, 2009); first, consent involves an explicit act, either verbal or written constituting agreement. Second, consent can only be given if participants are informed about and have an understanding of the research. This will show respect for children and their parents (Spriggs, 2010). Third, consent must be given voluntarily without coercion. Finally, consent must be renegotiable, conceptualised as an ongoing process throughout research so that children may withdraw at any stage of the research process (Alderson and Morrow, 2011). In order to maintain these principles, prior to the interview I visited the children and their parents in their homes and gave them a project information sheet. I then carefully explained the project in detail, though simply, asking their willingness to be interviewed and making an agreement about the date, time and place of the interview. At the time of interview, I asked children and their parents a non- recorded verbal consent prior to their interview. A recorded verbal consent then was given either prior to or after a recorded interview. The consent indicates several key pieces of information including; that the interview would be voluntary, that parent or child could refuse to answer any question, that the information would be kept anonymously and stored securely, and that they could also withdraw from the research at any time. I asked and recorded their consent verbally by reading the consent form to them, after explaining the meaning of the consent form to them in a more casual conversation.

The reason for employing verbal consent, not a signed record of consent, was that in Indonesia, similar to other parts of the global south in general, asking the informant to sign a consent form might pose a technical problem. It might create a sense of obligation as the consent form could be perceived as a legal document, and in some cases, might cause prospective research participants to withdraw their willingness to be involved in the study. Signing a form is sometimes perceived as

vital and significant as with legal issues. Another problem was that sometimes parents were semi-illiterate, thus signing a consent form was practically challenging. To deal with the validity of verbal consent, I adopted the ESRC Framework for Research Ethics (2010). They identify “the use of a witness as the most appropriate way in which to verify verbal informed consent”. This approach, however, was not practical in my study since there was no research resources to involve a witness throughout the study, besides the presence of a witness would become another problem in terms of confidentiality. A further way in which verbal informed consent can be verified, which was used in this study, is through

recording the process.

Anonymity and confidentiality

Anonymity is important to ensure the research participant’s confidentiality. As Hill (2005) suggests, this study has identified three components of confidentiality in doing research with children: “public confidentiality, social network confidentiality, and party breach of privacy”. Preventing public confidentiality means that this study does not publicly identify research participants in the report or publication. By protecting social network confidentiality, it is meant that this study keeps all information and does not give information to the network of the researcher or participant, such as their friends, families or relatives. And finally, by preventing breach of privacy, this study keeps information when “a group or household member reveals something personal about another”. To ensure the anonymity of the children and their parents, this study protects their confidentiality during the process and after the study by disguising their personal data such as their name, address, and locations. Their anonymity and confidentiality were explained prior to the interview to ensure that they felt safe while explaining their beliefs and

experiences, without any constraints. However, as they agreed through their verbal consent, it is possible that this study would break their anonymity when there is an evidence of child abuse or child neglect.

According to the Indonesian Law on Child Protection number 23 of 2002, a researcher as part of society is responsible for protecting children, especially for children who need special protection. This law, in Article 1, defines special protection as:

Protection of a child in emergency situations, a child who find themselves in contact with the law, a child from minority and isolated groups, a child being economically or sexually exploited, child victims of the misuse of narcotics, alcohol, psychotropic substances and other addictive substances, child victims of kidnapping, a child that are sold, child trafficking, child victims of physical, sexual and/or mental violence, disabled children, child victims of abuse, and neglected/abandoned children.

However, this study did not find issues likely to disclose information requiring further action as mentioned, thus there was no reason for the researcher to break anonymity or confidentiality. To ensure that research participants had an informed choice, at the start of interview I explained that “if anything they say makes me concerned that a child in the community is being abused, I will need to inform the appropriate child protection authorities”. This was to ensure that respondents were fully informed of my ethical obligations, which make me ethically bound to break confidentiality and report the case to the responsible authorities. To increase the degree of anonymity and confidentiality, this study also anonymises the name of the districts, the institutional gatekeepers, the communities, and the community gatekeepers.

Harm/Risk

Powell and Smith (2009) have argued that a central issue for research with children is the principle of beneficence and maleficence. This is to ensure that children will be protected from potential harm of research and, at the same time, gain real benefit from participation in the study (Alderson and Morrow, 2011). On the one hand, a strong protectionist approach can potentially take children away from the opportunity to express their views. On the other hand, a strong participatory approach might be possible to cause harm to children during their involvement in the research. This study carefully balanced the principles of the participatory and of protectionist approaches so that children had an arena to express their views and at the same time they were secure from harm or risk that might emerge from their opinion, such as conflict between children and their parents because of

contradictory views.

This study ensures that this project is safe for both the researcher and the researched. I always minimise and ultimately eliminate any harm and risk for children, parents and the researcher participating in this study by applying several

principles. First, child and parental participation is entirely voluntary. I emphasised that their participation was completely of their own accord; the study would not intimidate children or their parents. There was no obligation that they had to answer all questions; they could refuse to answer a question that may put them under pressure. Second, the interview was conducted in a safe, comfortable place. This study carried out interviews with children and their parents in their own homes or at another location of their preference. And third, this study kept all information about the participants confidential.

However, I also realised this study might cause harm or risks in various forms. One possible risk was the loss of time that was generally a discomfort for some

individuals. For example, in this study I found a mother in East Java saying she lost potential income due to participation in the interview. She was supposed to collect river sand and receive payment from her daily activities; however, she decided to participate in the interview with me. To minimise this risk I set up the interview to last about an hour and also gave them a small return for participation – as

discussed below (see: fair return for participation). Other possible risks were the discussion of sensitive topics (for example: their economic hardship or poverty), voicing of unwelcome opinion (for example: their disagreement with government policy), and recalling traumatic/distressing events, causing some level of suffering for the participants (for example: a grandfather talking about her daughter - a child worker’s mother - having an unwanted pregnancy in the past). Invasion of privacy asking about their working habits may also cause unnecessary discomfort to subjects. To reduce these risks, I always emphasised that the participant could explicitly refuse to answer questions that were distressing to them and could end the interview at any time, without fear or feeling uncomfortable. In addition, an embarrassment of poor performance might be a minor but usually common risk. I found some respondents who identified themselves as ‘a poor villager living in a poor village’. To eliminate this problem, I maintained empathy by not emphasising their poverty, but on their local and household economic development.

I was also aware of the potential risk that might appear from the relationship among gatekeepers, children and their parents. If the children and families work for the gatekeepers and the gatekeepers know who is being interviewed, there will be possible harmful implications for the children and their parents. It may cause the

gatekeepers to prevent the researcher to gain access to the children and their parents, and therefore, the researcher would be unable to find particular information from the potential participants. This might also break the working relationship between the gatekeepers and the informants because of sensitive, unwanted information shared by the informants. However, this was not the case in my study, as most children were working for their family as unpaid workers.

Data security

This study results in two types of data, paper based data and electronic data, and implements strict procedures to keep all data secure and confidential. First, access to all data is the privilege of the research team. Only the researcher, the research supervisors and the thesis advisor can obtain data and information from the fieldwork. The researcher transcribed all interviews himself, so that the data is secure and no one but the researcher knows the content of the interviews. I also immediately anonymised research participants by changing their names and addresses. Second, to ensure the confidentiality of the paper based data, I manage them securely in a locked desk in the office at the Doctoral Study Room at The University of York. Only the researcher has access to the locked desk. In addition, to ensure the confidentiality of electronic data, I keep them saved securely. All

electronic data containing personal data such as name or address is password protected on the researcher’s personal computer. Third, to ensure that electronic data will not be lost, I made a second copy of the data, by uploading the electronic files to a secure central University of York file store.

Fair return for participation

In the context of the global south, payment for participation in research remains controversial. On one hand, some argue that payment can improve the participation level as most people are living in poverty. Payment is also perceived as recognising and valuing participants’ time and contribution. Not offering a fair return can also prevent potential informants from participating in the study and, as such, could bias the sample. On the other hand, payment for participation could create a sense of obligation meaning participants will not freely participate. It can potentially bias the sample by encouraging other people to participate in order to receive payment (Ennew, 1997). This study did not provide payment for research participants but,

as explained earlier, a small gift was provided for informants. Merchandise, such as a key ring and bag, were prepared for child and parental participation. I consider that this type of return for participation did not create a sense of obligation that could put informants under pressure, as the gift was cheap. Moreover, at the same time, it was recognition of the children’s and parents’ involvement in the research. Having discussed the methods used in this study, the next chapter will describe the research context and setting, including the community context and children’s work context. The next chapter aims to provide the reader to better understand some of the empirical data that will be presented in the discussion chapters.