Research Ethics in Human Geography

This book explores common ethical issues faced by human geographers in their research. It offers practical guidance for research planning and design that incorporates geographic disciplinary knowledge to conceptualise research ethics.

The volume brings together international insights from researchers in geography and related fields to provide a comprehensive overview of relevant ethical frameworks and challenges in human geography research. It includes in-depth reflections on a range of ethical dilemmas that arise in certain contextual conditions and spatial constructions that face those researching and teaching on spatial dimensions of social life. With a focus on the increased need for specialist ethics training as part of postgraduate education in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the necessity for fostering sensitivity in cross-cultural comparative research, the book seeks to enable people to engage in ethical decision-making and moral reasoning while conducting research. Chapters examine the implications of geographical research for conceptualising ethics and discuss specific case studies from which more general conclusions, linked to conceptual debates, are drawn.

As a research-based reference guide for tackling ethically sensitive projects and international differences in legal and institutional standards and requirements, the book is useful for postgraduate and undergraduate students as well as academics teaching at senior levels.

Sebastian Henn holds the Chair in Economic Geography at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. His research interests focus on knowledge transfers over geographical distance, urban economies as well as on migration and regional development.

Judith Miggelbrink, holds the Chair of Human Geography at Technische Universität Dresden. Her research focuses on social geography and globalisation. Currently, her projects deal with securitisation in border regions, cross-border medical practices, peripheralisation and regionalisation. Her methodological focus is on qualitative methods as well as mixed methods.

Kathrin Hörschelmann is Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Bonn, Germany. Her research focuses on the entangled geographies of (in)security, with a particular interest in childhood and youth. She is co-author of Children, Youth and the City and co-editor of Spaces of Masculinities.