Mission Impossible: Not Getting Emotionally Involved in Research among Vulnerable Youth in South Africa^☆

This chapter stems from work on a PhD thesis, available online at https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/13382

Although ethnographic research requires researchers to become highly involved in the lives of their respondents, in research reports or articles one rarely finds how the researcher dealt with his or her involvement, how this influenced the execution of the research, the interpretations and the outcome. In this chapter, I would like to discuss the issues that I faced during my research among children and young people living in so-called child-headed households in a disadvantaged community in South Africa.

Although children are recognized as social actors in the social sciences, ethical issues in research following from this new view have received less attention. Ethical considerations are part of any research project, but it is often argued that research among children raises some particular issues. I shall reflect on my emotional involvement and ethical issues on the basis of the principles of informed consent, maximum benefit and protection from harm and the influence of my interpreters on these issues. Doing research to children and young people in such difficult situations requires emotion work. In the conclusions I will make some suggestions for dealing with the emotions of respondents and one own emotional involvement.