Qualitative ResearchPub Date : 2025-09-29eCollection Date: 2026-06-01DOI: 10.1177/14687941251377266
Rebecca Tapscott, Sophie Moxon
{"title":"Vulnerability in procedural ethics: A study of 44 national research ethics guidelines.","authors":"Rebecca Tapscott, Sophie Moxon","doi":"10.1177/14687941251377266","DOIUrl":"10.1177/14687941251377266","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>How should qualitative social scientists understand and engage with the concept of vulnerability in their research? Scholars have largely approached this question from the perspective of <i>ethics in practice</i>, inductively exploring the real-world challenges that arise when studying marginalised and subaltern communities. This article examines vulnerability from the perspective of <i>procedural ethics</i> - or the formal rules and processes that guide the regulation of research ethics - by examining the concept in 44 national research ethics guidelines from around the world. The findings show that, in contrast to the relational, embedded and dynamic understanding of vulnerability elaborated by qualitative social science scholars, national research ethics documents remain heavily dominated by understandings of vulnerability originating from biomedical research, both in terms of how they define and action vulnerability and the recommendations they propose to mitigate it. For guidelines that extend their remit to the social sciences, they increasingly include caveats and nuances that help speak to the concerns of qualitative social scientists. However, they do not question key underlying assumptions that continue to create challenges for qualitative social science researchers, especially those working in a critical tradition.</p>","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"26 3","pages":"513-538"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13245854/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148213008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How can institutions better support researchers? The case of extremism and terrorism research","authors":"Audrey Gagnon, Tamta Gelashvili","doi":"10.1177/14687941251341992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941251341992","url":null,"abstract":"Research in certain fields of study may carry emotional and safety-related risks. For example, scholars in the field of extremism and terrorism often navigate potentially uncomfortable or unsafe environments, face an emotional toll when exposed to extreme ideologies or risk facing backlash from extremists, either during the research process or after the publication of their findings or media appearances. However, support provided for them tends to be limited, often due to the lack of institutional awareness of the risks inherent in researching potentially dangerous populations. Drawing on 13 interviews with directors and coordinators of research institutions that have developed guidelines and protocols to protect researchers, as well as 7 internal documents produced by these institutions, this article examines institutional practices for preventing, mitigating and responding to harm, threats and harassment of researchers. The findings emphasize the role of institutions in establishing a safe organizational culture, implementing safety tools and protocols and considering the intersectional nature of risks and challenges.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"25 6","pages":"1452-1472"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147916327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qualitative ResearchPub Date : 2025-01-15eCollection Date: 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1177/14687941241306234
Maria Correia, Sarah Alexis, Aleksandra Dulic
{"title":"Indigenizing collaborative methods in studying human-water relations in the Syilx Okanagan Territory of British Columbia, Canada.","authors":"Maria Correia, Sarah Alexis, Aleksandra Dulic","doi":"10.1177/14687941241306234","DOIUrl":"10.1177/14687941241306234","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article describes co-design and Indigenous methodologies applied in Waterways, Past, Present, and Future, a research inquiry and immersive media exhibition on human water relations carried out in the Syilx Okanagan First Nation territory of British Columbia, Canada. As a backdrop, we provide an overview of collaborative research, co-design, and Indigenous methodologies principles and then describe how these edicts were reflected in Waterway's praxis. The co-leadership of the research team, the cross-cultural interdisciplinary composition of the team, the decolonizing frame applied throughout the inquiry and design process, and the timeframe for team members to carry out personalized and collective multi-layered preparation were key ingredients in the application of Indigenous methodologies. Co-design principles observed in Waterways included prioritizing design justice and incorporating reflexivity and flexibility, iteration, and emergence in the design process. These methodological considerations can lead to more impactful co-design and cross-cultural research collaboration in Indigenous settings, which is currently a priority in Canada's ongoing reconciliation process.</p>","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"25 6","pages":"1344-1369"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12668439/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145662439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Uncomfortable interviews: A research journey of discomfort and how to make the most of it","authors":"Johanna Söderström, Markus Holdo, Alice Junman","doi":"10.1177/14687941241297344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241297344","url":null,"abstract":"How does discomfort affect research interviewing? Recent contributions suggest that researchers do not always experience discomfort as problematic but also as productive. We explore our experiences of, and strategies for, uncomfortable interviews. Based on experiences of interviewing right-wing populist Twitter activists in the United States and Sweden, we make four claims. First, discomfort may arise throughout the research process with multiple origins, e.g. the content of the interviews, emotions expressed or held back, security concerns, and tensions between professional, social, and ethical norms. Second, we show that most of these concerns are not necessarily obstacles to overcome, but might contribute to more reflexive and insightful conversations depending on how and when they arise. Third, discomfort pinpoints tensions and dilemmas within our research projects, which may not always be resolvable. Fourth, discomfort can thus be productive as we learn, adapt, reconsider and articulate our research choices in the wake of discomfort.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"25 5","pages":"1041-1061"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147920835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Visual reasoning: the role of abduction within qualitative research on interprofessional working","authors":"Beth Cross","doi":"10.1177/14687941241297562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241297562","url":null,"abstract":"Whilst visual methods have increasing research use, visual reasoning has received less attention. Integration of health and social services require professionals to work with increasing coordination. Visual reasoning plays an important role in these complex skill sets and is under-theorized. This article focuses on visual reasoning within qualitative research in this professional context. Visual languages and the reasoning done with them often remain implicit, leading to confusion and underutilisation. Here, we investigate the use of metaphoric and diagrammatic visuals by a purposive sampling of key stakeholders discussing collaboration across integrated children's services. We analyse the function visual images played within our own interpretive negotiations as a research group and problematise why participants made extensive use of metaphoric reasoning whilst remaining critical of the effectiveness of diagrammatic visuals. Our original contribution is to highlight the role of abduction in visual reasoning within research analysis and within professional reflection.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"25 6","pages":"1260-1281"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147888582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creative writing as critical fieldwork methodology","authors":"Martin Zebracki, Emily Diamand, Aydan Greatrick","doi":"10.1177/14687941241277731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241277731","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines creative writing (CW) as a place-based methodology for doing and analysing fieldwork. Drawing insights from CW scholarship and workshops as part of a collaborative project, we contribute new empirically-informed insights from peer researchers about the significance of leveraging emotional connections, detailed attention to lived experiences, and the researcher's experiences in executing and reporting fieldwork. While attending to tensions between ‘academic’ and ‘creative’ writing, we examine how adopting different and alternative writing approaches can express diverse complexities of the field research process. We contribute to an understanding of CW as a dialectical catalyst, serving as a mode for reflecting on the relationships between the researcher and the researched within the field as well as a mode for analysing and disseminating fieldwork findings. By doing so, our study presents opportunities and limitations of CW as a critical methodology for generating situated knowledges about the field and for reimagining fieldwork.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"99 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An Ansoms, Anuarite Bashizi, Romuald Adili Amani, Joel Baraka Akilimali, Lionel Bisimwa Matabaro, Parfait Kaningu Bushenyula, David Mutabesha, Sylvie Bashizi Nabintu, Guillaume Ndayikengurutse, Joseph Nsabimana, Patient Polepole
{"title":"Turning the tables or business as usual? COVID-19 as a catalyst in North–South research collaborations","authors":"An Ansoms, Anuarite Bashizi, Romuald Adili Amani, Joel Baraka Akilimali, Lionel Bisimwa Matabaro, Parfait Kaningu Bushenyula, David Mutabesha, Sylvie Bashizi Nabintu, Guillaume Ndayikengurutse, Joseph Nsabimana, Patient Polepole","doi":"10.1177/14687941241264658","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241264658","url":null,"abstract":"Since February 2020, we have witnessed COVID-19 profoundly disturb ongoing research dynamics – including research collaborations between the Global North and the Global South. Reduced international and regional mobility obliged research collaborations to reinvent their modalities. The role of field-based researchers (those physically ‘there’) has never been more crucial. This article draws on the testimonies of researchers from the African Great Lakes region to reflect on the positionality of field-based researchers in North–South research collaborations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Their embeddedness in the field foregrounded their complementary strengths in interactions with scholars from the Global North. We also illustrate how vulnerabilities – both unstable employment and field-related risks – were unevenly shared by partners in the Global South and the Global North. In conclusion, the COVID-19 experience inspired us to adhere to new collaboration modalities that move beyond post-colonial dynamics in North–South research collaborations.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘You’ll come back another day’ Exploring the challenges of interviewing upper class elites","authors":"Graham Grant, Heather Fulford, Peter Reid","doi":"10.1177/14687941241264461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241264461","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses the challenges of undertaking elite interviews with members of the aristocracy and gentry who constitute the upper classes in Great Britain. It reviews the existing guidance on elite interviewing from a number of social science disciplines highlighting areas of commonality and difference. The aim of the article is to provide advice for those undertaking research on the upper classes. It draws on empirical examples to highlight strategies for undertaking broad and deep literature reviews and to present a pragmatic process for identifying, selecting, and undertaking interviews with members of the upper classes. Existing guidance on interview format is highlighted as being unsuitable. We argue for the need to allow for flexibility in interview structures ranging from fully structured to almost entirely unstructured, depending on the positionality and personality of the interviewee. We also explore how the presupposition of anonymity and confidentiality in the literature presents a dilemma for researching the upper classes that warrants wider debate.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"119 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Harriet Larrington-Spencer, Ersilia Verlinghieri, Emma Lawlor, Rachel Aldred
{"title":"Troubling go-alongs through the lens of care","authors":"Harriet Larrington-Spencer, Ersilia Verlinghieri, Emma Lawlor, Rachel Aldred","doi":"10.1177/14687941241277747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241277747","url":null,"abstract":"Go alongs are a popular research method for studying everyday mobility practices, providing insight into embodied experiences of engaging with lived environments. Generally considered positive and productive, there is increasingly discussion of go-along interviews as emotionally, cognitively and physically demanding. We consider care an essential component of go-along interviews. However, this has been overlooked in scholarship; particularly the relationality of care, including care of the researcher. We provide four vignettes discussing our experiences of conducting 118 go-along interviews with residents living in or near London Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Reflecting on care-full encounters, we highlight the role of reciprocity, solidarity, and mutual understanding, strengthened by the recognition of shared experiences. Reflecting on care-less encounters, we highlight how, by disrupting traditional research hierarchies, go-along interviews can expose marginalised and stigmatised researchers to abuse. Overall, our vignettes demonstrate that care is a relationally produced, shared accomplishment involving both the researcher and the participant.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Awaiting further consideration","authors":"Jane Dickson","doi":"10.1177/14687941241277738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941241277738","url":null,"abstract":"School exclusion is a relatively rare occurrence, but there is a disproportionate over-representation of students with special educational needs (SEN) being excluded from mainstream classrooms, both formally and through hidden practices. Venturing from the classroom into the world of educational research for my doctoral study, I came across further potentially exclusionary practices as questions were raised about the capacity of students labelled as SEN to provide voluntary informed consent. In my contribution to this special issue, I use poetry to reflect on ethical issues in my study and the need to challenge perceptions of the vulnerable in order to fight for their rights to be heard and participate equitably in all aspects of society.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}