Vulnerable Listening: Possibilities and Challenges of Doing Qualitative Research (original) (raw)
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As health researchers we need to investigate a wide range of topics to enhance our understanding of the many issues that affect health and well-being in today's society. Much of the health research undertaken today involves face-to-face encounters with participants using qualitative methodologies. There is a growing recognition that undertaking qualitative research can pose many difficulties for researchers. However, very little research has focused directly on the experiences of researchers while undertaking qualitative research and the issues that their involvement in the research raises for them. To explore these issues, one-to-one interviews were conducted with 30 qualitative health researchers. A grounded theory analysis revealed that researchers can face a number of challenges while undertaking qualitative research. These include issues relating to rapport development, use of researcher self-disclosure, listening to untold stories, feelings of guilt and vulnerability, leaving the research relationship and researcher exhaustion. These results are discussed and recommendations for researchers involved in qualitative research are made.
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Ethical guidelines for conducting research are embedded in the Helsinki Declaration of 1964. We contend that these abstract and intentionally universal guidelines need to be appropriated for social and healthcare research, in which purpose and methods often deviate from medical research. The guidelines appear to be instrumental and over-simplistic representations of the often ‘messy’ realities surrounding the research process that is often guided by relational and local negotiations of ethical solutions. Vulnerable participants, for instance, challenge both professional and research ethics, leaving both professionals and researchers in ethical and moral dilemmas. In this article, we specifically focus on the methodological challenges of obtaining informed consent from drug users and terminally ill cancer patients in our PhD research. The question is how to illuminate the needs and problems of vulnerable patients and – at the same time – respect their integrity without exposing them ...
A great deal of research has been undertaken into areas involving sensitive topics. In spite of longstanding acceptance that such research can be emotionally risky for participants, interest in the impact of this work on the researcher has only relatively recently become a topic of concern. This paper reports on a roundtable convened with qualitative researchers working in sensitive research areas. The article explores their views in relation to the emotional risks they encountered in relation to their work. A grounded theory, thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and comparisons are made between researcher experiences and those highlighted by earlier studies. We illuminate how researchers described personal concerns about the emotional risks, before focusing on how the researcher's sense of professionalism contributed to, or protected against, these emotional risks and emotions. This paper also discusses the faltering nature of the support provided to these researchers and the challenges created by the need they felt to create impactful research. The authors conclude by arguing that current support and guidance provided to researchers working in sensitive areas fails to address the complexity of the emotional reaction of the researcher. We call for the development of specialised training and improved use of theoretical concepts such as emotion work, to guide those undertaking this challenging work.
The vulnerable researcher: facing the challenges of sensitive research
Purpose -Based upon a six-year research study with a community street soccer programme, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the different faces of the researcher undertaking sensitive research -vulnerable, reflexive, reciprocal, and emotionally fatigued, in addition to the potential impacts on others, including research assistants and transcribers. Design/methodology/approach -The paper draws on detailed notes and observations from a research journal kept throughout the project using an auto-ethnographic approach. Findings -The paper discusses how the author attempted to nurture and protect himself as the person within the researcher, and managed the doubts and stresses faced by those undertaking sensitive research with vulnerable communities. Originality/value -As more research is undertaken with vulnerable communities, and more researchers share their experiences, the self-care strategies, the author and others have employed may become standard practice for research training and practice.
Book Review: Demarginalizing Voices: Commitment, Emotion, and Action in Qualitative Research
As qualitative research methods continue to widen in social science, there remains a legacy that needs to be continually addressed by post/positivist paradigms and means to construct knowledge. Even within qualitative research, methodologies that confront power relationships through less traditional approaches to research and knowledge production have unique challenges and considerations. Kilty, Felices-Luna, and Fabian have assembled voices from critical social researchers engaging in qualitative work with vulnerable populations to share not only their methods undertaken but also the resistance and challenges faced along the way. Voices were gathered from Canadian researchers across the country in various social science disciplines, including criminology, sociology, nursing, and justice; however, critical social researchers outside of these disciplines will find similar struggles as well as those who engage in research with vulnerable populations.
Blurring Boundaries in Qualitative Health Research on Sensitive Topics
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boundaries. The authors discuss the findings and offer recommendations for qualitative health researchers involved in researching sensitive topics, including the need for researchers to consider the impacts that undertaking research might have on them.
Reflexivity in 'sensitive' qualitative research: Unfurling knowledge for nursing
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Sensitive research presents particular challenges for the qualitative researcher because it involves topics that are stressful and may cause emotional pain for both the participants and researcher (McCosker & Berber, 2001). This paper presents challenges I have experienced in researching with registered nurse participants, who like me, had cared for a dying family member in palliative care. The research was inspired by my curiosity about what it was like for other nurses living within their family and community as a nurse and how they managed the complexities caring for a dying family member brought to their lives. Face to face interviews with these nurses made me aware of the participants’ vulnerability, and my own, in sharing experiences about loss and bereavement. As the interviews progressed I realized how much I shared the participants’ culture; linguistically, relationally and experientially (Harper, 2003). While shared identities and experiences give qualitative nurse researc...