Handbooks for qualitative research and social science research generally highlight the importance of ethics in research with people. The ethical conduct of the researcher is often discussed in the context of power. With the researcher being viewed as powerful and the participant or subject as powerless. I see a fundamental problem with this. Taking a comparatively recent text Somekh and Lewin's 'Theory and Methods in Social Research’ (2011) as an example, they describe how knowledge confers power and so researchers have to be mindful of the impact of research on participants. I am not sure who has the knowledge - who is meant to have it? There is an assumption that the researcher has knowledge and researched does not. They go on to discuss how there may be different distributions of power in different kinds of relationship and that this is reflected in the terms used - participant, co-researcher, and informant and so on. They conclude by acknowledging that power differentials are not in the control of the researcher.
There is an assumption here about power - notably, that it is inevitably with the researcher who possesses knowledge. This suggests that power is finite, limited, and dichotomous (power/powerless binary) - you either have it or you do not. Have spent time in my teaching creating ways to encourage social workers to challenge this notion of power - similarities in social work practice, persuading students and social workers that power is exercised rather than possessed and drawing on Foucauldian ideas about power and their application to social work to show the limits in social work practice of dichotomous thinking about power (perpetrator/victim or social worker/ client for example), without denying that there are some situations where practitioners do have knowledge and power in their professional life. Juritzen et al (2011) also talk about the assumed asymmetrical relationship of power in the researcher/researched dyad in their Foucauldian analysis of research ethics committees. Much has also been written about the ‘real world’ of ethics in research which is in the course of the research negotiated, dynamic and situated.
4.15.1 ‘Power being exercised in the field’ – an example
As an example of how power operated in this study, I offer an example from my research practice which happened early on.
I arrive after long journey. Co-ordinator very welcoming, introduced me to committee. Having their tea break. Chair makes a big fuss and starts asking why I'm there. They are not informed of anything by central office about these observers coming all the time. Co-ordinator says that she had sent him all relevant letters and information sheets (which I had asked to be sent). Chair and other committee members had clearly not read any of them. One of members says she is concerned about confidentiality and what I'm going to do with information. I explain I'm not there to evaluate, explain purpose of research and say that as it states on my letter, I will withdraw if there are any members who do not wish me to sit in - even at this point. She then says she needs to discuss this privately and can I leave the room.
Extract: Field notes made immediately following observation Rec A Their grievance was with 'central office' and probably nothing to do with me attending but they could, have justifiably not consented to the observation. They did discuss as a committee and decided to let me stay. My intention here is not to suggest that they did not have the right to ask questions but to illustrate:
• The need to negotiate consent each time I attended a committee
• The unexpectedness of what can happen in the field and the need to respond flexibly
• That design can be meticulously planned (all members of committee and researchers would receive letters, information sheets, consent forms prior to me attending) but that this may not happen in practice of the research
• That research does not happen in a vacuum and contexts are influenced by personal and organisational politics which the researcher has no control over
I use this as an example of how as a researcher, I did not feel very powerful at times. I had entered a field of which I knew little - either about the particular dynamics of each committee or the wider institutional politics. RECs are powerful component parts of (institutionalised) ethical regulation. They cannot all act in the same way as they are made up of a group of individuals and reflect the geography and history of where they take place. I had to negotiate access differently with each REC. As the research participants in this study, I experienced them as committees and individuals able to exercise agency in decision-making about consent. I always reiterated that any individual committee member had the right to say that they did not wish to participate and that I would leave.