The Politics and Ethics of Fieldwork (Qualitative Research Methods, Vol. 3)

Nijenrode, Breukelen, The Netherlands This book presents the moral and political issues that continually crop up in accounts of qualitative research, making special reference to sociological and anthropological fieldwork. Too often these ethical and political dimensions of research are glossed over or presented in print as unproblematic. But, according to Punch, some researchers report stress, role-conflict, disorientation, and even danger while others, the "conflict" methodologists, are encouraging lies and deceit. The craft of fieldwork, and the demands made by the professionalization of social science, urgently require analytical insight into the moral and political dilemmas faced by fieldworkers. This book examines the ethical debate on research in terms of consent, deception, privacy, identification, confidentiality, and spoiling the field. It also scrutinizes the nature of codes of conduct. "Politics" are illuminated through a case study detailing the intricate nature of research bargains as personally experienced by the author in a prolonged struggle about publication. In a frank and forthright manner, the author discusses areas frequently clouded over and alerts both students and professionals to the pitfalls of the field. Punch rejects both codes and conflict methodology and searches pragmatically for common sense, debate, and scholarly peer-pressure to shape the control of research. He encourages individuals and professionals to be wary of "rip and run" ethnographers who enrage their subjects by exposing them. These inherently ambivalent dilemmas of fieldwork are dealt with in a lively analysis that practically assists the researcher in negotiating the "political" and moral mine-field of qualitative research. "With wit and irony, he details how the provisional character of trust and its limits are constantly tested through ongoing negotiation." --Canadian Journal of Education

Maurice Punch, previously Professor of Sociology at Nijenrode, The Netherlands School of Business, is now an independent scholar and consultant. He has published extensively in the area of business ethics and organizational crime.