The Pains of Doing Criminological Research: on Vulnerability, Violence and the Ethics of Scientific Practices

• In Event: New Directions In Critical Methodology

Abstract

Based on our experience with empirical research on youth crime and justice, and as chair of the ethical commission at our university; this paper will discuss (specific) ethical and deontological questions emerging from criminological research practices. The paper is based on our case of researching the impact of judicial interventions in the pathways of youngsters “in conflict with the law”.

Criminological research (and specifically youth justice studies) often focuses on what is described as “vulnerable” participants. Precisely this vulnerability is at the core of ethical discussions (harm, informed consents, etc …) on how (criminological) research is done and methodologies are designed. This vulnerability has many faces and colors, but it also has to do with Mary Bosworth’s argument that “criminology rests on human suffering” (2001). Moreover, “shielded by facts and figures, as well as by an often overwhelming desire to be ‘objective’, criminologists rarely acknowledge in print the personal difficulties they have experienced while doing their research” (Bosworth, 2001). Ethical and deontological questions are often treated as merely technical problems. However, acknowledging, “the rather uncomfortable idea that research as a human activity is inherently violent” (Redwood, 2008), we need to go beyond and explore another epistemological position (Stengers, 1997).

Author

• Jenneke Christiaens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel - CRiS