Developing Research In Seclusion Contexts: From The Strangeness to The Embodiment

• In Event: Deconstructing Research Silences through Qualitative Research

Abstract

The purpose of this communication is to discuss ethical and methodological challenges associated with qualitative scientific research in confined spaces, specifically the challenges that rise in the relation with the secluded individual. This discussion is based on the investigations carried by the authors in these institutions, namely in youth detention centers and in prisons.
Performing any scientific research requires the observation of ethical principles to ensure the combination of the interests of the researchers and of its participants, particularly in terms of confidentiality, privacy and security. Furthermore, for the development of any scientific research, trust is a key element; and trust, in this secluded contexts, involves the development of practical arrangements which may interfere with an issue widely discussed: the scientific neutrality.
In this paper we discuss the ethical and methodological issues in three distinct phases - pre, peri and post data collection - conjugating and analytically opposing formal guidelines established and enforced by the state institutions (procedural ethics) and informality due to the relationship with the Other (ethics in practice). Is this process of reflection between the initial strangeness of contact with the confinement space and its actors and the institutional and relational embodiment that we aim to address.

Authors

• Vera Duarte, ISMAI, CICS.NOVA - UM - Portugal

• Sílvia Gomes, CICS.NOVA - UM, ISMAI - Portugal