Navigating Ethical Dilemmas in the Field

Revelations Made in “Sticky Moments”

Bibliographic Data

ID11354112
AuthorsRory Sommers (0000-0002-4635-220X, Sheridan College, corresponding author), Allison Chenier (University of Waterloo), Andrew Hathaway (0000-0002-0443-7918, University of Guelph)
Year2026
Publication date2026-03-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSymbolic Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-6086 • E-ISSN: 1533-8665
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/symb.70044
OpenAlexW7141155112
LanguageEN
References cited60

The impossibility of knowing in advance what might be ethically contentious in ethnographic research is exemplified by the dilemmas faced by having a multitude of inside and outside positionalities that are often fluid and evolve throughout a study. Based on active interviews and fieldwork in two studies of police and bylaw officers and municipal officials, this article reflects on unanticipated ethical challenges arising throughout the research process, from the recruitment of participants to obtaining informed consent to trying to “fit in” as both insider and outsider. The resulting tension is unavoidable, inevitable, and generates new insights based on actual experiences that are often unforeseeable. Ethnographers accordingly rely on their own instincts when deciding what is ethical rather than fixed protocols prescribed by Research Ethics Boards. To complicate things further, note the authors, such dilemmas are a manifestation of evolving power relations between researchers and informants and institutional gatekeepers needed to gain access, but with differing priorities than those imposed by REB regimes

Ethical issues · Ethnography · Impossibility · Insider · Instinct · Multitude · Power (physics · Research ethics · Ethics in Clinical Research · Focus Groups and Qualitative Methods · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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