Foreword to the special issue
Ethical sensitivity is rising in all research fields. There is already a consolidated debate on ethics in conducting Qualitative Research (QR). For instance, Sage Publishing has promoted several volumes in its methodological book series (Miller et al., 2012; Hammersley and Traianou, 2012; Flick, 2018; Iphofen and Tolich, 2018; Mauthner et al., 2002; Trimble and Fisher, 2006; Mertens and Ginsberg, 2009). There is also a longstanding debate on ethics in Migration Studies (MS) since the path breaking article of Carens (1987) on “open borders”, which is followed by some reference books such as Gibney (1988), the edited book by Barry and Goodin (1992), and the more pragmatic focus from the same Carens (2013) or the special issue edited by Zapata-Barrero and Pécoud (2012) amongst others. Yet, an ethical debate linking QR and MS is certainly a recent area of reflection with a seminal edited volume by Van Liempt and Bilger (2009). This Special Issue (SI) aims to bring research ethics debates in QR and MS studies together. In particular, it has two main objectives: First, it aims to map the distinctive ethical challenges that Qualitative Migration Research (QMR) faces, which are not often addressed by standard ethical guidelines. Second, it aims to provide guidance for these ethical issues against the background that many researchers deal with ethical challenges on a case-by-case basis and general frameworks might not adequately address the particularities of each case.
Today, there are more ethical codes and guidelines available for researchers than before. The previous disastrous breaches of ethical values have shown the importance of formalized ethical procedures and review processes. Formal research ethics plays an important role in promoting key ethical principles such as respect for the autonomy of participants (the importance of voluntariness, informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity), beneficence (the responsibility to do good), non-maleficence (the responsibility to avoid harm) and justice (the importance of the benefits and burdens of research being distributed equally). Yet, ethical practices are never straightforward and self-evident. Various unexpected ethical challenges can arise during the course of the research. This is particularly true for qualitative researchers considering their flexible and responsive research practices. Fixed ethical rules are increasingly criticized for impeding certain forms of innovative, qualitative or critical social scientific research and alternative epistemological perspectives as well as for forcing researchers to reframe their research needs according to the formal regulations but not according to the needs of their fieldwork. Procedural ethics brings about further contention, as migration researchers work with mobile (or previously mobile) populations, who often – while not always – live at the social margins in precarious conditions. The intensification of political conflict on the issue of migration poses further ethical challenges for migration researchers.
Moving from this background, this SI addresses the following questions:
How does exploratory, flexible and in-depth nature of QMR affect ethical issues?
How does working on mobile people that cut across national boundaries affect ethical considerations?
What are the ethical consequences of working on highly politicized migration topics, having far-right wing's interest in the research results and having immediate effects on existing policies, public and political debates?
What are the limits of standardized and universal ethical codes for the QMR research?
How can we provide a common ethical ground for QMR that goes beyond a case-by-case evaluation, but still effectively addresses specific problems that rise during the research process?
Different contributions focus on different ethical challenges in working with different migrant groups including vulnerable migrant women and youth and using different qualitative methods, i.e. interviews, participant observation and visual methods. The authors discuss various ethical considerations such as informed consent, positionality, self-reflexivity, confidentiality and anonymity while referring to their own research projects as illustrative examples. Despite covering a wide range of issues, all authors highlight the limits of blindly pursued procedural ethics and the need to be aware of particular ethical considerations that QMR requires.
The SI begins with an introductory article by Ricard Zapata-Barrero and Evren Yalaz that aims to review the current ethical debates in MS and map the particular ethical challenges in QMR before, during and after the fieldwork process. The authors intend to go beyond ethical debates in the form of biographical “ethical confessions” and argue for having critical “ethical radar alert” at every research stage. The article shows that the standardized ethical guidelines may be either too broad to properly address the specific ethical challenges faced by migration researchers or may even misguide researchers when they are not accompanied with critical ethical thinking. The authors, by evaluating the major ethical issues in different research stages, conclude that “any research decision is an ethical decision”.
Martha Montero-Sieburth addresses ethical challenges encountered when conducting ethnographic research with vulnerable migrants. She argues that participatory fieldwork engagements lead to participatory ethics, which contrasts top-down procedural ethics that clearly identifies the roles and relationships of researchers and participants. Participatory ethics brings about co-constructed knowledge, decision-making, problem-solving and collective negotiations. Through the use of selected case studies, the author highlights the evolving nature of ethics and how the issues of positionality and reflexivity influence this dynamic process.
Diego Castillo-Goncalves analyzes the distinctive ethical features of QMR with respect to migrant children. He particularly focusses on the ethical challenges involved in the labelling of migrant children. Through drawing on a case study conducted by the author, the article demonstrates how the notions of “childhood” and “migration” interact and can have different connotations according to the different positions. The author shows how the particular challenges involved in research with migrant children can be embraced as an opportunity for exploring the researcher's own positionality as well as how to make ethical choices based on reflexivity.
Sophie Samyn, Sarah Adeyinka, Sami Zemni and Ilse Derluyn focus on the ethical challenges of conducting qualitative research on sub-Saharan women working in prostitution in Brussels. The paper demonstrates how new ethical questions rise as certain migrant groups find themselves at the intersection of multiple vulnerabilities. By considering the interplay between procedural, relational and socio-economic ethics, the authors present four strands of ethical challenges that emerged during the course of the fieldwork: representing internal diversity of the migrant group under study; ethical responsibility of researchers witnessing injustice and violence; effects of working in a multi-ethnic research team and ethical issues involved in presenting the findings on vulnerable migrants.
Justyna Bell, Agnieszka Trabka and Paula Pustulka open up the ethical challenges related to disclosure while conducting qualitative interviews in the setting of shared ethnic background of researchers and participants. By taking a temporal approach, the paper discusses the challenging ethical issues that spans from the “relational disclosure” involved in rapport building to the “representational disclosure” during the dissemination of findings. Authors' case studies shed light on the dilemmas and entanglements faced by insider researcher in Migration Studies.
Melissa Hauber-Özer and Meagan Call-Cummings review how recent studies using participatory research tools – particularly photovoice – engage with ethical issues. Their findings demonstrate a wide gap in terms of treatment of research ethics that spans from the absent or cursory ethical consideration to detailed ethical accounts. By showing the broad range of approaches, the authors invite researchers to critically and proactively reflect on ethical challenges.
