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10.1177/1077800403262360 ARTICLEQUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS”
Ethics, Reflexivity, and “Ethically
Important Moments” in Research
Marilys Guillemin
Lynn Gillam
University of Melbourne
Ethical tensions are part of the everyday practice of doing research—allkinds of research.
How do researchers deal with ethical problems that arise in the practice of their research,
and are there conceptual frameworks that they can draw on to assist them? This article
examines the relationship between reflexivity and research ethics. It focuses on what con-
stitutes ethical research practice in qualitative research and how researchers achieve ethi-
cal research practice. As a framework for thinking through these issues, the authors dis-
tinguish two different dimensions of ethics in research, which they term procedural
ethics and “ethics in practice.” The relationship between them and the impact that each
has on the actual doing of research are examined. The article then draws on the notion of
reflexivity as a helpful way of understanding both the nature of ethics in qualitative
research and how ethical practice in research can be achieved.
Keywords: research ethics; reflexivity; research practice
Picture this scene. You are a researcher working on a study examining women’s
experiences of heart disease. You are interviewing Sonia, a woman in her late 40s with
diagnosed heart disease. Sonia lives on a remote farming property in a rural region.
She is married and has one teenage daughter living at home with herself and her hus-
band. The interview is progressing well. Over a cup of tea in Sonia’s kitchen, you
inquire about the impact of heart disease on her life. Sonia stops and closes her eyes.
After a few moments’ silence, you notice tears welling up in Sonia’s eyes. Sonia tells
you that she is not coping—not because of her heart disease, but because she has just
found out that her husband has been sexually abusing her daughter since she was a
child.
This kind of scenario is not unusual when conducting qualitative re-
search. Most qualitative researchers can describe similar experiences they
261
Authors’ Note: We would like to gratefully acknowledge the suggestions and com-
ments of our colleagues at the Reflexivity seminar series at which a draft version of this
article was presented.
Qualitative Inquiry, Volume 10 Number 2, 2004 261-280
DOI: 10.1177/1077800403262360
© 2004 Sage Publications
have encountered, usually with considerable emotion and crystal-clear re-
call. The issues raised in this scenario have ethical and legal implications.
How as researchers do we respond to such disclosures when they occur, and
are there existing conceptual frameworks and principles that we can draw on
to assist us? Our focus in this article is on what we refer to as the “ethically
important moments” in doing research—the difficult, often subtle, and usu-
ally unpredictable situations that arise in the practice of doing research. We
are interested in the ethical practice of research and how this is achieved.We
examine existing ethical principles and frameworks for both their limitations
and what they offer researchers and then turn to reflexivity as a potential tool
for ethical research practice.
Ethical dilemmas and concerns are part of the everyday practice of doing
research—all kinds of research. Ethics is certainly not confined to qualitative
research or necessarily to research that involves humans. Ethical issues are
equally pertinent in clinical trials that are primarily quantitative, in research
that involves animals rather than humans, in research that involves humans
only indirectly (such as that which investigates human remains or documents
that relate to people), and even in nonempirical research where the indirect or
long-term consequences can be significant. The traditional starting point and
focus for discussions of research ethics has been the ethical principles for-
mulated for biomedical research, usually quantitative in nature. However,
since the 1960s, social scientists have also explored ethics in qualitative social
research (Bulmer, 1982; Homan, 1991; Kimmel, 1988; Orb, Eisenhauer, &
Wynaden, 2001; Robley, 1995). In this article, we build on this work by focus-
ing on what constitutes ethical research practice in qualitative research and
how researchers achieve ethical research practice. Specifically, we examine
the particular concerns of ethics in qualitative research and how they relate
to biomedical research ethics as traditionally defined. In particular, we ask
whether there are theoretical resources within the tradition of qualitative
research for dealing with ethical aspects of research practice or whether these
resources must be drawn from elsewhere. This question arises in a context
where externally generated principles of research ethics have been applied to
qualitative social research and where disquiet about the appropriatenessof
this has periodically been expressed (American Association of University
Professors, 2000; Bouma & Diemer, 1996).
As a framework for thinking through these issues, we distinguish two dif-
ferent dimensions of ethics in research, which we term procedural ethics and
“ethics in practice.” We examine the relationship between them and the
impact that each has on the actual doing of research. Having shown that pro-
cedural ethics cannot in itself provide all that is needed for dealing with ethi-
cally important moments in qualitative research, we then draw on the notion
of reflexivity as a resource. This is the key step. Although reflexivity is a famil-
iar concept in the qualitative tradition, we suggest that it has not previously
been seen as an ethical notion. We propose that reflexivity is a helpful concep-
262 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
tual tool for understanding both the nature of ethics in qualitative research
and how ethical practice in research can be achieved.
DIMENSIONS OF ETHICS IN RESEARCH
We suggest that there are at least two major dimensions of ethics in qualita-
tive research (indeed in all research, but we will not pursue that issue here).
These are (a) procedural ethics, which usually involves seeking approval
from a relevant ethics committee to undertake research involving humans;
and (b) “ethics in practice” or the everyday ethical issues that arise in the
doing of research. It could be argued that there is another dimension—
research ethics as articulated in professional codes of ethics orconduct. Most
professions and organizations have professional codes of conduct (Bulmer,
1982; Coady & Bloch, 1996; Homan, 1991). Although these codes do exist and
are often essential components of the constitution of professions and orga-
nizations, we, like other analysts such as Mason (1996, p. 166), would ques-
tion the relevance of these codes for actual research practice. Hornsby-Smith
(1993) claimed that organizational codes of conduct are often too restrictive,
and that there is a general move in many organizations toward more general
guidelines for ethical practice. In terms of usefulness in addressing ethical
issues that arise in practice, professional ethical codes are largely not practical
or applicable and can serve only as general guidelines. Although we do not
wish to totally dismiss the role of professional codes in guiding ethical
research practice, we focus in this article on procedural ethics and “ethics in
practice” and the relationship between them. We begin by reflecting on the
impact that these different dimensions actually have on research.
Procedural Ethics
In qualitative research that involves humans, one of the early stages of the
research process is the completion of the application form for a research ethics
committee.1For many researchers, the completion of the research ethics com-
mittee’s application form is a formality, a hurdle to surmount to get on and do
the research. Like many of our qualitative research colleagues, we diligently
answer the questions on the ethics application form, even though they may be
irrelevant to our research. We have learned to write our responses to the ques-
tions in “ethics-committee speak.” This involves using language that the
committee will understand, is free of jargon, but will nonetheless reassure the
committee that we are competent and experienced researchers who can be
trusted. This also involves explaining methodology to a committee who may
be unfamiliar with qualitative methods and in some cases, may be antagonis-
tic toward this type of research.Moreover, we have learned to gloss over some
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 263
issues that we know may cause the committee concern, for example, giving
a transcriber, who is external to the research team, access to interview tapes
without seeking direct consent from the participants, or not to draw too much
attention to potential, although unlikely, risks to the researchers when con-
ducting the research (in particular, risks to research assistants or less-
experienced researchers on the researchteam). The form asks whatmeasures
the researcher/s have put in place in the event of unexpected outcomes or
adverse effects. As indicated in the opening scenario, there are many situa-
tions that are unexpected when doing research that can potentially have
adverse consequences—how can you foresee and plan for all of these? Most
researchers learn quickly that they need to be savvy in addressing the poten-
tial issues of concern of the committee: using the appropriate discourse toen
-
sure that applications will be approved as quickly as possible with minimum
changes and dispute, while remaining true to their research integrity.
“Ethics in Practice”
The second dimension of ethics we consider is “ethics in practice.” These
pertain to the day-to-day ethical issues that arise in the doing of research.
Consider the example of Sonia’s disclosure that her husband has been sexu-
ally abusing her daughter. This can be interpreted as a classic ethical dilemma
of whether to breach Sonia’s confidentiality to prevent harm to her daughter.
Even with this interpretation, this is not an ethical question that receives
much attention at the procedural ethics level, where the focus is much more
on how confidentiality will be maintained rather than on when a breach of
confidentiality might be ethically required. More important, we suggest that
this is not the only ethical issue here or even the most pressing one. There are
many more immediate ethical concerns. The researcher has to decide how to
respond to what Sonia has said. Does the researcher let the disclosure pass or
take it up in some way? And in what way—what words to say, what tone of
voice to use? Turnoff the tape recorder or keep it running? Abandon the inter-
view plan or try to return to it? Offer to discuss the situation or offer to help in
some way? These are issues about the ethical obligations a researcher has
toward a research participant in terms of interacting with him or her in a
humane, nonexploitative way while at the same time being mindful of one’s
role as a researcher.
These issues are not usually addressed in research ethics committee appli-
cations, nor are they events that are often anticipated when applying for
approval. Some researchers may not even regard them as ethical in the sense
that they may not be “dilemmas” or appear to be of great consequence. It is
certainly true that some of them are not dilemmas, if we take dilemma to refer
to a situation in which there is a stark choice between different options, each
of which seem to have equally compelling ethical advantages and disadvan-
264 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
tages. Perhaps these issues may seem unimportant because they have an
“everyday” sort of quality. However, there is much more to ethics than red-
letter dilemmas, and much is missed by not being aware of this. The questions
that we have posed about responding to Sonia represent what we call “ethi-
cally important moments,” where the approach taken or the decision made
has important ethical ramifications, but where the researcher does not neces-
sarily feel himself or herself to be on the horns of a dilemma. In fact, in some
cases, it might be relatively clear how the researcher should respond or pro-
ceed, and yet there is still something ethically important at stake. For exam-
ple, it might be clear that the researcher should not just continue with the
interview as if nothing has happened but instead, should respond directly to
Sonia in some way. That this is clearly the right thing to do does not make the
situation ethically trivial; the moment of response is an ethically important
moment for there is the possibility that a wrong could be done. There can be
all sorts of ethically important moments: when participants indicate discom-
fort with their answer, or reveal a vulnerability; when a research participant
states that he or she does not want to be assigned a pseudonym in the writing
up of the research but wants to have his or her real name reported; or the case
described by Orb et al. (2001) of interviewing victims of violence where the
researcher has to decide how far to probe a participant about a difficult and
distressing experience.
It is this dimension of ethics made up of “ethically important moments”
that is of primary interest in this article. Although this ethical dimension of
research practice is often apparent to researchers, there is little conceptual
work available to draw on to make sense of it. We need both a language to
articulate and understand these ethical issues and an approach that assists us
to deal with these issues when they arise. We will now go on to suggest a way
into this “ethics in practice” dimension and then consider how “ethics in
practice” relates to procedural ethics.
Microethics in Research Practice
A potentially useful term for thinking about “ethics in practice” is micro-
ethics. This term comes from the literature on ethics in clinical (medical) prac-
tice rather than from research ethics, but we suggest that it has obvious appli-
cation to research ethics. The term microethics was originally proposed by
Komesaroff (1995) to address what he saw as the disjuncture between “big
issue” bioethics and everyday ethics in clinical practice. Bioethics has tradi-
tionally focused on what are now the classic “neon light” debates centered on
such issues as euthanasia, cloning, reproductive technologies,and so on.Bio-
ethics, especially in its mainstream form, where it arises out of analytic moral
philosophy, provides philosophical tools of analysis to understand the funda-
mental ethical issues at stake in these debates and goes on to logically argue
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 265
toward conclusive statements about what should be done in dealing with
these issues. The debates are usually conducted in general rather than partic-
ular terms and may readily be interpreted as recommendations for public
policy rather than as a guide to individual ethical reflection or action.
Although it has been a useful contributor at this general level, bioethics
has been critiqued, from both within and outside its philosophical base, for
either ignoring or being unable to deal with the ethical questions at the local
or individual level. The increased focus on what is now often called “clinical
ethics” or “medical ethics” has gone only part way toward dealing with this
criticism. Although clinical ethics addresses itself to individual doctors (and
to a lesser extent, other health professionals) on matters that arise in the clini-
cal setting, the focus has still tended to be on “dilemma-type” issues, suchas
refusal of treatment. Clinical ethics has still been couched in general andab
-
stract terms, as witnessed by the continuing tendency to cast all communica-
tion between doctors and patients in terms of informed consent. Komesaroff
(1995) addressed all these sorts of concerns when he claimed that
medical ethics is not just about the dramatic questions that are discussed widely
in the popular media or in the philosophical texts. Ethics is what happens in
every interaction between every doctor and every patient. (p. 68)
By using the term microethics, Komesaroff attempted to capture the everyday
ethical issues that arise in clinical practice—the establishment of trustbe-
tween doctor and patient, the taking of a sexual history, the dealing with past
fears, the probing about the patient’s illness experience. None of these pre-
sents a “dilemma” in the classic sense that we described earlier, but Komesaroff
wanted to both validate them as important ethical matters worthy of the clini-
cian’s attention and also provide a language for reflecting on them.
For Komesaroff, microethics is about the complex dynamics between doc-
tor and patient in clinical practice. However, it is also potentially applicable to
the complex dynamics between researcher and participant in research.2To
talk about microethics in research practice is to give credence to the “ethically
important moments” we articulated earlier: what to say in response to Sonia’s
disclosure of sexual abuse, deciding how much to probe a participant about
a difficult experience, and so on. Although the term microethics has been
critiqued for setting up a false dichotomy between the abstractness of bio-
ethics and the specificity of ethics in clinical practice, it nonetheless provides a
language to describe and understand the “ethics in practice” in research.
The Relationship Between
Procedural Ethics and Microethics
Earlier, we suggested that for many qualitative researchers, the research
ethics committee application is primarily a hurdle to surmount. Being made
266 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
to jump this hurdle can be a frustrating experience for qualitative social re-
searchers, as a recent discussion paper produced by the American Associa-
tion of University Professors (2000) attests. The discussion paper documents
concerns expressed by a wide range of social researchers that institutional
review boards in the United States are inappropriately applying models from
the biomedical sciences to ethical review of social sciences research. The dis-
cussion paper reports that in the view of these social researchers, the ap-
proach taken by the institutional review boards “was established and has
evolved within a clinical and biomedical framework that does not fit their
research” (American Association of University Professors, 2000, sectionI,
p. 3). In this context, it is worthwhile to reflect further on the role of research
ethics committee approval. Is it really the case that research ethics at thepro
-
cedural level does not fit the practice of qualitative research? Does the process
of applying for approval in any way contribute to ethical research practice?
It is indeed true that the principles and processes used to conduct the ethi-
cal review of qualitative social research were developed initially in the con-
text of biomedical research. The beginnings of procedural ethics are usually
traced to the Nuremberg Trials that occurred after World War II. Among those
tried at Nuremberg were Nazi doctors whohadcommitted terrible abuses on
concentration camp inmates in the name of medical research. One of the out-
comes of the trials was the so-called Nuremberg Code that expressly stated
the obligation of medical researchers to gain the consent of those on whom
they conducted research and not to harm them. The Nuremberg Code was
soon followed by the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki
that restated similar principles. This remains an extremely important interna-
tional reference point for the regulation of medical research, as witnessed by
the recent heated international debate over proposed changes to the Declara-
tion that would have reduced standards of care required for clinical trialsin
developing countries (for a discussion of this, see Zion, Gillam, & Loff, 2000).
After these international documents were drafted, individual countries be-
gan to produce and revise their own codes and guidelines, which were gener-
ally modeled on the Declaration of Helsinki.3
Initially, these codes and guidelines were aimed only at biomedical re-
search, but in many countries they came gradually to be extended to all
research involving humans, including social and qualitative research of all
kinds. In the United States in the 1960s, guidelines issued by the Department
of Health and Human Services through the Office of Protection fromResearch
Risks were initially cast in broad terms to apply in principle to “all research
involving human subjects” (Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Sub-
jects [hereafter, the U.S. Common Rule], 2001, 46.101); however, this applied
only to research that was funded or conducted by 17 federal government
departments. There was also a list of exclusions regarding the types of
research that did not require ethical approval. Many types of social research
appeared on this list of exclusions, including surveys, interviews, and obser-
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 267
vation of public behavior (U.S. Common Rule, 2001, 46.101[b]). However,
most individual institutions voluntarily extended ethical review in various
ways, such as requiring review of nonfunded research as well as funded re-
search and requiring researchers who believe their work is exempt to apply
for exemption, a process that actually requires as much documentation and
review as applying for approval (American Association of University Profes-
sors, 2000, section I, p. 3). Hence, in many universities in the United States, all
qualitative research is subject to review at the level of procedural ethics.
A very similar process occurred in Australia at the instigation of the
National Health and Medical Research Council—the key national research
funding body and organization that issues research ethics guidelines—rather
than at the initiative of the universities. Although the National Health and
Medical Research Council guidelines were initially directed only at biomedi-
cal research, the Council issued a directive stating that it would fund research
only at institutions where all research on humans was conditional on ethical
review. Australian universities therefore complied, and social research of all
kinds became subject to procedural ethics. In 1999, the substantially revised
version of the guidelines, the National Statement on Ethical Conduct of Research
Involving Humans (NS) (Commonwealth of Australia, 1999), formalized this
by making the extension to all types of research explicit (McNeill, 1993, pp. 74-
75). Likewise in Canada, The Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS) (Medical
Research Council of Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada, & Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada, 1998) covers all research, including qualitative research. In short, in
the United States, Canada, and Australia,4a single ethics committee, often
based at a university, reviews all types of research involving humans (unless
subcommittees are set up for institutional convenience, but the same guide-
lines still apply). All social research, whether or not it is health related,
whether or not it is conducted at a health care facility, is conditional on this
process.
It appears that ethics at the procedural level has been imposed on qualita-
tive research from outside. Does this foreignness mean that it is irrelevant to
qualitative research or worse, destructive to it? Weargue that it does not. First,
research ethics committees satisfy an obvious need to protect thebasic rights
and safety of research participants from obvious forms of abuse. We do not
dispute this and would strongly support the role and importance of research
ethics committees in the research process in this regard. Second, it can at least
be said that procedural ethics offers researchers an ethics “checklist” by
reminding the researcher to consider such issues as the potential risks to par-
ticipants, the balancing of the benefits of the research against those risks, the
steps needed to ensure confidentiality of data, and the inclusion of consent
forms and plain language statements in the material provided to participants.
This is a helpful aid in designing a research project that will be ethically
acceptable in its broad methodology. Further, in fulfilling the procedural obli-
268 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
gations of this ethics checklist, the researcher is also granted institutional
credibility to carry out the research.
However, this still leaves quite a gulf between procedural ethics and “eth-
ics in practice.” The checklist is not much help once the researcher is out in the
field and dealing with the realities of research practice, such as Sonia’s disclo-
sure about the abuse of her daughter. So what is the ultimate significance of
research ethics committee approval? By gainingapproval of a committee, do
researchers conduct their research in a more ethical way than they would
have if they had not gained approval? There is no direct or necessary relation-
ship between ethics committee approval of a research project and what actu-
ally happens when the research is undertaken. The committee does not have
direct control over what the researcher actually does. Ultimately, responsibil-
ity falls back to the researchers themselves—they are the ones on whom the
conduct of ethical research depends. Arguably, procedural ethics has little or
no impact on the actual ethical conduct of research.
This view of the research ethics committee process as quite divorced from
the ethics of research practice is common among qualitative researchers for
whom, as we noted above, the ethics committee process comes out of a for-
eign paradigm (this is discussed in Daly, 1996, p. xvii). We have two responses
to it. First, we suggest that the gulf between procedural ethics and “ethicsin
practice” (microethics) is not as great as it may first appear. On the contrary,
we argue that there is considerable continuity between ethical concerns at the
procedural and practical levels and moreover, there would be something
drastically wrong if this were not the case. Second, we suggest that at the level
of “ethics in practice,” the “homegrown” notion of reflexivity actually encap-
sulates and extends the concerns of procedural ethics. When the responsibil-
ity for ethical conduct falls, as it must, on the researcher and not on the re-
search ethics committee, there is still a framework for thinking about ethical
conduct that is not utterly divorced from procedural ethics and yet is already
integral to the good practice of qualitative research. We now argue for eachof
these claims in turn.
Continuity Between Procedural Ethics
and “Ethics in Practice”
It would be naïve and mistaken for ethicists to suggest that procedural eth-
ics is the whole of ethics—that ethical issues in the practice of research can be
entirely covered by the ethics committee process. It is within the dimension of
“ethics in practice” that the researcher’s ethical competence comes to the fore.
By this we mean the researcher’s willingness to acknowledge the ethical
dimension of research practice, his or her ability to actually recognize this eth-
ical dimension when it comes into play, and his or her ability to think through
ethical issues and respond appropriately. However, we argue that all of this is
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 269
directly related to, and enhanced by, what happens in the ethics committee
process, even though it cannot be ensured or enforced by it. To make our case,
we will identify the fundamental ethical values on which procedural ethics
is based and attempt to show that these values are both (a) relevant to quali-
tative social research and (b) not radically different from the issues and
concerns that have already been identified as arising in the microethical
dimension.
Although in general, ethical codes and guidelines are often not a great
source of ethical enlightenment and typically contain vague motherhood
statements, guidelines for research ethics tend to be much more precise. The
U.S. Common Rule (2001), the Australian NS (Commonwealth of Australia,
1999), and the Canadian TCPS (Medical Research Council of Canada et al.,
1998) all provide reasonable summary statements of the ethical principles
that are central in the standard approaches to research ethics in the discipline
of bioethics. In the U.S. Common Rule (46.111[a]), these are in the form of a list
of criteria that must be met for ethics committee approval, which includes
minimizing harm, informed consent, and protection of privacy. In the Austra-
lian NS, a general principle is enunciated. The NS says that its “guiding
value” is integrity, which it defines as a commitment to the search for knowl-
edge and to honest and ethical conduct (Commonwealth of Australia, 1999,
1.1, p. 11). The NS’s “guiding ethical principle” is respect for persons (Com-
monwealth of Australia, 1999, 1.2, p. 11). This includes respect for the auton-
omy of individuals, achieved mainly by the mechanism of informed consent
(Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, 1.7, p. 12); respect for privacy, achieved at
least partly by rules relating to confidentiality and secure storage of data
(Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, 1.19, p. 13); and respect for the dignityof
persons (Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, 1.4, p. 11). The TCPS includes a
very similar set of guiding ethical principles: respect for persons, respect for
free and informed consent, and respect for privacy and confidentiality
(Medical Research Council of Canada et al., 1998, i.5-6).
The principle of beneficence, which refers to the obligation to act in ways
that benefit other people, or at least in ways that do not harm them, is high-
lighted in all three documents (U.S. Common Rule, 2001, 46.111[a][1]-[2];
Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, 1.3, p. 11; Medical Research Council of
Canada et al., 1998, i.6). Likewise, justice is identified in all of the documents
as an important principle (U.S. Common Rule, 2001, 46.111[a][3]; Common-
wealth of Australia, 1999, 1.5, p. 11; Medical Research Council of Canada et al.,
1998, i.6). Justice here refers specifically to distributive justice, which in the
context of research on humans mainly points to the importance of a fair shar-
ing of the burdens and benefits of research across the whole community.
Among all these principles, particular precedence is given to the principle
of respect for persons: the NS states that “respect for the dignity and well-
being of persons takes precedence over expected benefits to knowledge”
(Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, 1.4, p. 11), whereas the TCPS claims that
270 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
“the welfare and integrity of the individual remain paramount in human
research” (Medical Research Council of Canada et al., 1998, i.5). This is quite
standard in guidelines for research ethics and can also be seen in the Declara-
tion of Helsinki. This is of prime importance in understanding what might be
called the “ethical environment” of research and needs further exploration.
Research involving human participants starts from a position of ethical
tension. In the great majority of cases, research involving humans is a process
of asking people to take part in, or undergo, procedures that they have not
actively sought out or requested, and that are not intended solely or even pri-
marily for their direct benefit, although in some cases participants may indi-
rectly benefit from the process. From the perspective of bioethics and moral
philosophy, this is ethically problematic, because it fails to accord to individu-
als the respect that they are owed. One way of explaining the problem is that it
involves a violation of the Kantian maxim that people should never be used
merely as a means to someone else’s end (that is, as a tool to achieve someone
else’s aim). Another way of explaining this, derived from Kant’s emphasis on
the importance of the individual as the decision maker for his or her own life,
is to say that it does not adequately respect the autonomy of the individual—
that it is an individual’s right to act according to his or her own purposes
rather than the purposes of others.5This tension can be resolved, however, if
the subjects of the research take up the goals of the research as their own; they
are then not being used as mere means or tools by the researchers. In other
words, in making the research their own project jointly with the researchers,
they become participants in the research rather than subjects. In practice, the
standard way in which this is seen to be achieved is to obtain free and in-
formed consent from participants rather than simply conscripting them. Itis
because of this fundamental ethical principle that informed consent is so
prominent in procedural ethics and why research ethics committees spend so
much time being concerned about plain language statements and consent
forms. Given that these are the fundamental ethics principles in procedural
research ethics, let us now consider what application or relevance they have
to qualitative social research and in particular, whether they relate to the pro-
cedural dimension only or also to the practical.
The inherent ethical tension identified above exists in qualitative social re-
search just as it does in biomedical research. Kellehear (1996) made this point
quite sharply when talking about “delicate situations” in qualitative research:
The interview is the creation of an unnatural social situation, introducedbya
researcher, for the purpose of polite interrogation. It is this situation, delicate by
definition, which is ethically questionable. (p. 98)
With the exception of some action research and community-based research,
qualitative research is not initiated or actively sought out by its participants,
nor is it aimed solely at benefiting them, although as we have suggested, there
may be benefits, both direct and indirect.
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 271
Qualitative social researchers are on the whole very sensitive to this ethical
tension. This recognition means that respect for autonomy and the process of
informed consent is just as relevant for qualitative research as it is for biomed-
ical research. Satisfying an ethics committee’s requirement for informed con-
sent is not merely jumping through a bureaucratic hoop. Of course, there may
be significant differences in the way that informed consent is understood as a
formal process. Procedural ethics in the biomedical model work on the basis
of formal written consent, complete with quasi-legal documents and signa-
tures of witnesses. This is particularly emphasized in the U. S. Common Rule
(2001, 46.117). However, there is nothing in the concept of informed consent
that requires any of this. Signed consent forms do not constitute informed
consent, they merely provide evidence (perhaps of questionable value) that
consent has been given, and insofar as procedural ethics requires that consent
not only be given but also documented, this documenting can occur in a num-
ber of ways, such as taping a verbal consent (which is explicitly allowed forby
the Australian NS; Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, 1.7). Informed consent
is at heart an interpersonal process between researcher and participant,
where the prospective participant comes to an understanding of what the
research project is about and what participation would involve and makes his
or her own free decision about whether, and on what terms, to participate.
Together with respect for autonomy, the other ethical principles enunci-
ated in these documents are also highly relevant to qualitative social research.
Avoiding causing harm to participants, for example, is surely an absolutely
basic consideration. Harm, as is widely recognized, is not merely a matter of
physical harm but has many other aspects, including emotional and social
harm.6Hence, harm can potentially be caused not only by drugs and invasive
procedures in medical research but also by the research methods, such as par-
ticipant observation or in-depth interviewing, typically used in qualitative
research. The possibility of harm to participants is the reason that research
ethics committees are concerned about the methodology of research projects
and the skills of researchers. The committee needs to satisfy itself that partici-
pants are not being exposed to excessive or unnecessary risks, which may
well be the case if the methodology of a project is not sound or a researcher
lacks essential skills.
Although most qualitative researchers are well aware of issues of harm,
the language in which this idea is often couched in ethics application forms
may appear at best ambiguous or at worst, completely irrelevant to qualita-
tive research. The potential harms to participants in qualitative social
research are often quite subtle and stem from the nature of the interaction
between researcher and participant. As such, they are hard to specify,predict,
and describe in ways that ethics application forms ask for and likewise, strate-
gies for minimizing risk are hard to spell out. In Sonia’s case, for example, the
researcher asking more questions than Sonia feels comfortable answering
may cause harm; or harm may be caused by not showing enough interest so
272 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
that Sonia feels she has been ignored and disregarded. If the researcher
encourages her to seek outside help or report the situation to the police, Sonia
may feel guilty for not having done this before or feel that the researcher is
blaming her for being too passive, or she may be frightened by the prospect of
outside intervention. Procedural ethics is obviously not the forum in which
issues of potential harm and other such “ethically important moments” can
be fully dealt with—they are too specific and nuanced. Again, it is at the level
of “ethics in practice” that researchers must do the real ethical work in this
regard. However, research ethics committees perform an important function
at the procedural level by forcing qualitative researchers to reflect and think
about the potential harms of their research, even though the questions may
not be answerable at this level. Hence, we concur with the claim in the TCPS
that these principles are “ethical norms that transcend discipline bound-
aries. . . . Fundamental ethical issues and principles in research in human sub-
jects are common across the social sciences and humanities . . . and health sci-
ences” (Medical Research Council of Canada et al., 1998, i.2). However, we
emphasize that these ethical principles alone cannot be expected to address
the everyday ethical difficulties of research practice.
REFLEXIVITY AND
“ETHICS IN PRACTICE”
As we have argued, ethical research is much more than research that has
gained the approval of a research ethics committee. Although research ethics
committees do play an important role in highlighting ethical principles that
are relevant to, and important for, social research, their role is necessarily lim-
ited. Research ethics committees cannot help when you are in the field and
difficult, unexpected situations arise, when you are forced to make imme-
diate decisions about ethical concerns, or when information is revealed that
suggests you or your participants are at risk. We suggested earlier that micro-
ethics might provide a discursive tool to articulate and to validate the kinds
of ethical issues that confront researchers on a day-to-day basis. However,
microethics is not helpful in addressing and dealing with these issues when
they arise. We need a process and a way of thinking that will actually lead to
ethical research practice. This is where we see animportant role for reflexivity.
Reflexivity and Research
Reflexivity is a concept very much at home in the world of qualitative
social research. We want to argue that it is also a bridge to the procedural ethi-
cal issues that can often seem out of place in the everyday practice of social
research. Reflexivity, we suggest, is closely connected with the ethical prac-
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 273
tice of research and comes into play in the field, where research ethics com-
mittees are not accessible.
Research is primarily an enterprise of knowledge construction. The re-
searcher (and coresearchers), with his or her participants, is engaged in pro-
ducing knowledge. This is an active process that requires scrutiny, reflection,
and interrogation of the data, the researcher, the participants, and the context
that they inhabit. We speak of research as a reflexive process, but how do we
define this slippery concept? Mason (1996) stated that reflexive research
means that the researcher should constantly take stock of their actions and their
role in the research process and subject these to the same critical scrutiny as the
rest of their “data.” (p. 6)
Hertz (1997, p. viii) noted that the reflexive researcher does not merely report
the “facts” of the research but also actively constructs interpretations (“What
do I know?”), while at the same time questioning how those interpretations
came about (“How do I know what I know?”).
Jenkins (1992) observed how Bourdieu provided another helpful way of
thinking about reflexivity in research. Bourdieu suggested the reflexivepro-
cess comprises taking two steps back from the subject of the research. The first
step back is the objective observation of the research subject; the next step
back is the reflection of the observation itself. This is akin to the first step pos-
ing the “What do I know?” question and the second step asking the “How do I
know?” question.
Reflexivity in research is not a single or universal entity but a process—an
active, ongoing process that saturates every stage of the research. Harding
(1986, 1987, 1991) reminded us that as researchers, our social and political
locations affect our research. Our research interests and the research ques-
tions we pose, as well as the questions we discard, reveal something about
who we are. Our choice of research design, the research methodology, and the
theoretical framework that informs our research are governed by our values
and reciprocally, help to shape these values. Who we include and who we ex-
clude as participants in our research are revealing. Moreover, our interpreta-
tions and analyses, and how we choose to present our findings, together with
whom we make our findings available to, are all constitutive of reflexive
research. Reflexivity in research is thus a process of critical reflection both on
the kind of knowledge produced from research and how that knowledge is
generated.
Using Reflexivity in Research
Having acknowledged the construction of knowledge in research as a
reflexive process, how does this assist us in dealing with the microethics of
research practice? Reflexivity is not usually seen as connected with ethics at
274 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
all. Rather, reflexivity in qualitative research is usually perceived as a way of
ensuring rigor (Finlay, 1998; Koch & Harrington, 1998; Rice & Ezzy, 1999).
Reflexivity involves critical reflection of how the researcher constructs
knowledge from the research process—what sorts of factors influence the re-
searcher’s construction of knowledge and how these influences are revealed
in the planning, conduct, and writing up of the research. A reflexive re-
searcher is one who is aware of all these potential influences and is able tostep
back and take a critical look at his or her own role in the research process. The
goal of being reflexive in this sense has to do with improving the quality and
validity of the research and recognizing the limitations of the knowledge that
is produced, thus leading to more rigorous research. It does not have an
overtly ethical purpose or underpinning.
To see how a useful connection can be made between reflexivity and eth-
ics, consider again the accounts of reflexivity that we offered.These accounts
suggest that reflexivity is not necessarily focused only on the productionof
knowledge in research (what might be called the epistemological aspect of
research practice) but also on the research process as a whole. Adopting a
reflexive research process means a continuous process of critical scrutiny and
interpretation, not just in relation to the research methods and the data but
also to the researcher, participants, and the research context.
This would include issues about the ultimate purpose of the research. Is
the aim to construct knowledge, advance the researcher’s career, further the
specific goals of the research participants, or some more theoretically based
purpose, such as “enabling community life to prosper” (Christians, 2001,
p. 145)—and is this an ethically appropriate purpose? It would also include
the interpersonal aspects of research, the interactions between researcher and
participant that we suggest, are the substrate of the ethical dimensions of
research practice. In these interactions lie the possibilities of respecting the
autonomy, dignity, and privacy of research participants and also the risksof
failing to do so, thus perhaps causing harm to the participants in various
ways. It is in these interactions that the process of informed consent really
occurs—not on the pieces of paper that an ethics committee peruses. It is
therefore in these interactions that the integrity of the researcher is really on
the line.
In being reflexive in this sense, a researcher would be alert not only to
issues related to knowledge creation but also ethical issues in research. This
alertness might include conscious consideration of a range of formal ethical
positions and adoption of a particular ethical stance. For example, a feminist
communitarian position implies that research be undertaken in a particular
way. In this model, as Christians (2000, p. 145) described, research partici-
pants have a say in how the research is framed, what questions are asked,
what methods are used to answer them, and how the findings are regarded
and used. This is a particularly strong and proactive way of respecting auton-
omy, going far beyond the rather minimalist notion of informed consent.
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 275
However, a simple decision to adopt such a position would not necessarily
lead to ethical research practice; ongoing reflexivity on the part of the re-
searcher is still required. This is partly to check that the researcher’s practice is
actually embodying his or her principles; in addition, this allows the re-
searcher to become aware of situations where following the theoretical posi-
tion may not be the best course and may not best uphold the interests of his or
her participants. For instance, some research participants may not want to
take the very active role envisaged for them in the feminist communitarian
model, and reflexivity is needed to notice this and respond in an ethical way.
Out of this sort of reflexivity, it is possible that new or modified theoretical
positions may grow, but the key point is that the ethical practice of research
requires more thanthe in-principle adoption of an enlightened ethical theory.
McGraw, Zvonkovic, and Walker (2000) have pointed to the connection
between reflexivity and ethics. In an article that focuses on a practical ethical
problem that they encountered in a research project, McGraw et al. discussed
ethics as one aspect of reflexivity:
[Reflexivity is] a process whereby researchers place themselves and their prac-
tices under scrutiny, acknowledging the ethical dilemmas that permeate the
research process and impinge on the creation of knowledge. (p. 68)
McGraw et al. did not develop this idea, but the comment suggests that our
approach is not stretching the concept of reflexivity beyond its bounds.
On this basis, we can say a little more about how reflexivity could contrib-
ute to ethical research practice. Being reflexive about research practice means
a number of things: first, an acknowledgment of microethics, that is, of the
ethical dimensions of ordinary, everyday research practice; second, sensitiv-
ity to what we call the “ethically important moments” in research practice,in
all their particularities; and third, having or being able to develop a means of
addressing and responding to ethical concerns if and when they arise in the
research (which might well include a way of preempting potential ethical
problems before they take hold).
For example, with the opening scenario of Sonia, a reflexive researcher
would first understand and acknowledge that ethics in research has different
dimensions and that research practice is infused with microethics at all levels.
Second, this understanding would lead to an awareness of the potential im-
pact of the researcher and the research process on the lives of Sonia and the
other participants before the research even commences. This reflexive ques-
tioning would consider the impact of the researcher posing the questions to
Sonia, the questions and wording used by the researcher, the way the ques-
tions are framed, as well as the timing of the questions. This reflexive process
cannot predict all likely ethical problems that may arise in the doing of
research. However, what it does offer is a process that could have foreseen at
least the general sort of predicament that arose in relation to Sonia, or other
potential sorts of consequences that might arise, and offered the researcher
276 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
ways of addressing them. This may suggest ways of responding to Sonia,
including whether to encourage her to talk about the suspected abuse,
whether to turn off the interview tape, whether to offer Sonia assistance and
the type of assistance offered, and whether to continue with the interview
after her disclosure. These issues require decisions that are difficult to make
without forethought and prior consideration. They are also difficult to make
well without an ongoing awareness of the impact that a researcher’s re-
sponses can have on a research participant.
Reflexivity is not prescriptive in the sense that it specifies in the abstract
precisely what a researcher should do in response to Sonia’s situation. How-
ever, it does have a number of ethically important functions. In being reflex-
ive, researchers both reflect about how their research intervention might
affect the research participants before any actual research is conducted and
consider how they would respond as a researcher in the sorts of situations
that they can at this stage only envisage. Leading on from this, reflexivity
encourages researchers to develop the skills to respond appropriately. In the
actual conduct of research, the reflexive researcher will be better placedtobe
aware of ethically important moments as they arise and will have a basis for
responding in a way that is likely to be ethically appropriate, even with
unforeseen situations. Our notion of reflexivity urges researchers to be reflex-
ive in relation to interpersonal and ethical aspects of research practice, not just
the epistemological aspects of rigorous research.
CONCLUSION
Our focus in this article is an examination of what constitutes ethics in
qualitative research. Starting off from a position of seeing procedural ethics
and “ethics in practice” as divorced from one another, we suggest that thereis
some common useful ground to consider. Although procedural ethics is
unable to inform and guide all aspects of research practice, it does serve a
valuable function in forcing us to consider and reflect on the fundamental
guiding principles that govern research integrity. Furthermore, it acts as a
practical reminder that we need to be both mindful and active in protecting
our research participants (and ourselves) from harm and undue risks, as well
as affording respect for autonomy.
The concept of microethics is a valuable discursive tool to allow us to talk
about, validate, and better understand the ethically important moments in
research practice. It is limited, however, when it comes to offering guidance in
how to deal with these ethical events. We have argued that this is where the
notion of reflexivity is most useful. Reflexivity is something that most quali-
tative researchers are aware of and incorporate into their research practice; it
is not a new concept. However, what we suggest is that its meaning be ex-
panded so that reflexivity be considered and enacted as a way of ensuring not
Guillemin, Gillam / “ETHICALLY IMPORTANT MOMENTS” 277
just rigorous research practice but also ethical research practice. Being reflex-
ive in an ethical sense means acknowledging and being sensitized to the
microethical dimensions of research practice and in doing so, being alert to
and prepared for ways of dealing with the ethical tensions that arise. As we
have stated, reflexivity does not prescribe specific types of responses to
research situations; rather, it is a sensitizing notion that can enable ethical
practice to occur in the complexity and richness of social research.
NOTES
1. Research ethics committees or boards are known by different names in different
countries; for example, in the United States these committees are known as institutional
review boards, in Australia they are human research ethics committees, in the United
Kingdom they are local research ethics committees, and so on. For simplicity, we will
use the generic term research ethics committees to refer to all bodies that review applica-
tions for ethical approval of research involving humans.
2. Komesaroff (1996, p. 46) noted this, but does not expand on it in this text.
3. McNeill (1993) provided a comprehensive account of the development of the
ethics committee process in a number of different countries.
4. The UnitedKingdom, however,is somewhat different inthat local research ethics
committees are still largely the province of the health care system and are attached to
hospitals or local health authorities and hence, deal primarily with medical research.
Ramcharan and Cutcliffe (2001) discussed the currentproblems in the United Kingdom
of assessing social research within the largely medical research ethics committee
framework.
5. This Kantian perspective is especially evident in the Tri-Council Policy Statement
(Medical Research Council of Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada, & Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,
1998) that refers frequently to the notion of using a person as a means.
6. Astandard definitionof harmin bioethics is thatit is “a setbackto a person’s inter-
ests.” What counts as interest is controversial, but it clearly extends beyond an interest
in physical well-being. This controversy regards whether interests is a subjective or an
objective notion, but this means that interests can conceivably extend to include any
aspect of a person’s life that that person regards as important. Hence, there are many
ways in which a person can be harmed.
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Marilys Guillemin is a senior lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Health and
Society at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she teaches health
sociology and qualitative research methods to medical students and postgradu-
ate social health students. She has published widely for academic, health profes-
sional, and lay community audiences. Her research work broadly covers the
sociology of health and technology and women’s health in particular.
Lynn Gillam is a senior lecturer in health ethics at the Centre for the Study of
Health and Society and a research fellow in the Research Centre for Applied
Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She
has published in international journals, including Bioethics, Journal of
Medical Ethics and Medicine and Philosophy, and is the author of a well-
known series of introductions to topics in bioethics published in Monash
Bioethics Review. She is coauthor of Facts and Values: An Introduction to
Critical Thinking for Nurses (MacLennan & Petty, 1995), which includes a
large section on ethical reasoning and decision making.
280 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / April 2004
