La experiencia del Area Metropolitana de Lima

Ethical principles in conducting research in the humanities and social sciences are normally categorized to three areas: respecting the autonomy of the research subjects, avoiding harm and privacy and data protection (TENK 2009: 4). The principle of autonomy entails that all participation in research should be voluntary and based on informed consent (Ibid: 4). In this research, this principle concerns the sub-studies where my research data consisted of interviews. I have explained earlier in chapter 5.3.1 that I aimed to respect the autonomy of my research subjects by informing the interviewees about the purpose of my research and about

the fact that I could not guarantee anonymity for the organizations nor for my interviewees. Further, I explained what I intended to do with the findings of the study. By doing this, I aimed to avoid possible harm for the CSOs. As the interviewees were aware that their organizations would appear with their own names in my studies, they could decide not to report issues to me that they considered possibly harmful for their organizations. Furthermore, the principle of avoiding harm entails that the data is analysed thoroughly and systematically and presented in a way that is respectful towards the CSOs and the persons that have participated in the research (TENK 2009:8-9). I have aimed to be particularly careful in this regard as the CSOs included in my research are not provided anonymity.

One may of course question if I might have caused some harm to my research subjects by reporting the critiques some of them expressed towards their funders. In these instances, it was sometimes difficult to create a balance between the principle of avoiding harm and producing scientifically honest research findings. Therefore, I had to ask myself whether the critique expressed in the interviews was intentional or perhaps unconsidered. The relationships between the CSOs and their funders constituted a major part of the interviews in sub-study I and if an issue with a CSO’s funders was raised, it was also expressed repeatedly. I interpreted this to mean that the critique was expressed intentionally, and it was not only a matter of a ‘slip up’ that the interviewee did not want to reveal.

Nevertheless, retrospectively, I could have done more in order to make sure that the interviewees did not relate anything that could be injurious for their organization. For example, I could have reminded my interviewees during the interviews that I cannot provide anonymity and the findings of the study will be publicly available. In the case of the first sub-study, I could have also offered my interviewees the opportunity to comment on the draft article before proceeding to publish. I thought about this issue in the case of sub-study III and thus I sent my interviewees the manuscript for comments before publishing.

Ultimately, the responsibility for avoiding harm relies on the researcher who sometimes needs to balance between the principle of avoiding harm and the task of providing new information. I considered that the issues researched in this dissertation are important for understanding the kinds of pressures CSOs experience or have experienced, for example, in the context of marketization. I have also understood that these issues have been such that the representatives of the CSOs wanted to bring forward and bring forward to a public discussion. Providing anonymity could have protected CSOs from possible negative consequences that revealing these issues may have had, for instance, from the side of their sponsors. However, as I thought that CSOs in my study could easily be recognized due to the small size of the sectors examined, I did not want to give my

research participants a false belief that they would not be identified and therefore interviews were, in the first place, conducted without the promise of anonymity.

In relation to principles of privacy and data protection, I deleted all the recordings from my files after they were transcribed. I still possess the transcribed interviews in digital form in a memory pen in case I was asked to verify the interviews. The transcribed interview data does not include any direct identifiers or sensitive personal information about my interviewees (TENK 2009:10).

As mentioned earlier, some interviews were conducted via Skype or FaceTime video calls. The reason for choosing to use video calls were mainly practical as traveling to different countries to conduct only a few interviews would have been cost prohibitive. I also preferred video calls in relation to normal telephone calls as they enabled face-to-face interactions. Nonetheless, when using video call technologies such as Skype, the researcher may not be able to promise that the interviews will not be listened in on by third parties. This is possible, especially if certain words relating to the interest of intelligence services appear in the conversation (Lo Ioacano et al. 2016). This should be taken into account particularly if the researcher is conducting research on sensitive topics. According to Lo Ioacano et al. (2016), it is important that the researcher reminds the interviewees of the possibility that the video calls may be intercepted by third parties.

Truthfully, the possibility that third parties could listen to the interviews conducted via video calls did not occur to me when I began this dissertation project. I should have reminded my interviewees of this possibility. Yet, I do not consider this as a major problem in this particular research as my interviews did not handle confidential issues of any person nor were the issues relating to the work of CSOs sensitive. Nevertheless, if one uses video calls for data collection in future studies it is essential to consider their privacy.