Abstract
It is not unusual for researchers in ethnography (and sometimes Institutional Review Boards) to assume that research of “public” behavior is morally unproblematic. I examine an historical case of ethnographic research and the sustained moral outrage to the research expressed by the subjects of that research. I suggest that the moral outrage was legitimate and articulate some of the ethical issues underlying that outrage. I argue that morally problematic Ethnographic research of public behavior can derive from research practice that includes a tendency to collapse the distinction between harm and moral wrong, a failure to take account of recent work on ethical issues in privacy; failure to appreciate the deception involved in ethnographers’ failure to reveal their role as researchers to subjects and finally a failure to appropriately weigh the moral significance of issues of invasion of privacy and inflicted insight in both the research process and subsequent publication of research.
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I should like to thank Michael Pritchard, Peter Finn and Kenneth Pimple for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
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Schrag, B. Piercing the Veil: Ethical Issues in Ethnographic Research. Sci Eng Ethics 15, 135–160 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9105-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9105-2