Research Ethics

The last PostGrad Café was be held in the Glamorgan Building Senior Common Room on Wednesday 29th, November at 5pm. The theme of this PostGrad Café was Ethics. Three postgraduates, Jackie Needs, Robin Smith and Alex Mylles discussed the ethical issues involved in their diverse fieldwork projects. This Cafe was provocative and stimulating, with the ideas and thoughts of many attendees discussed, not just those presenting.

Jackie Needs – Ethics and Consent issues in Social Studies of Health and Medicine

What are some of the barriers social researchers must negotiate to obtain ethical approval and participant consent for studies of health and medicine? Is it time for a Qualitative Research Register, and what advantages and/or disadvantages may become apparent? Examples of difficult ethics and consent situations encountered in a study of Genetics and Insurance, where ethical approval was given a while before the study began.

Robin Smith – Thinking On Your Feet; Ethical issues in researching public spaces

The talk discussed issues that have arisen in conducting ethnographic research in regenerated public spaces, in this case Cardiff Bay. It covered the relationship between theoretical conceptualisations of the subject of the research and ethics. The talk was mainly concerned with the possible need for flexibility when considering research ethics which becomes especially apparent when conducting research in uncontrolled and open environments. Robin discussed some of the issues that arise from conducting covert research in such settings.

Alex Mylles – The Politics of Consent

This talk outlined some of the issues with researching a group in which Alex was a participant prior to (and during) the research. His research centres on a heated and politically charged debate within an LGB organisation on whether it should widen its remit to include transgender people or not. As an active member of the organisation Alex was a participant in this debate and advocated the inclusion of trans people. Alex detailed the problems regarding certain people withdrawing their consent for his research and argued that their reasons for doing so could have been politically motivated, as those who withdrew consent were all advocating excluding trans people.