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FEMINIST RESEARCH

JUDITH PREISSLE

elen is dying of breast cancer. Facing emphasizes, vary in how women’s her own mortality uncertainly, she revaluation, empowerment, and emancipation H struggles with how to help her young ought to be formulated, accomplished, and children through this experience. A few miles assessed. Liberal feminists are said to advocate away a research ethics board hesitates about social reform of existing social arrangements, approving a study of the relationship between socialist and Marxist feminists advocate restruc- dying parents and young children. Approaching turing society, and so forth. people at their most vulnerable to request con- In this chapter, I explore the development of sent to study them and their family seems crass feminist research ethics over the past several at best. How could the risk of intrusion possibly decades in the context of two influences: the balance any benefit from what might be increasing worldwide attention to responsible learned? conduct of research and feminist ethics more Ethics and moral theory are about making generally. Feminist ethics developed in part as judgments, especially judgments informed by an explicit challenge to conventional patterns of some explicit framework. and the vari- Western epistemology and ethics and thus has eties of feminisms themselves constitute such its roots in two feminist projects. The first is moral and ethical frameworks because they each work by psychologists such as Carol Gilligan represent positions on the experiences and such as who and places of women around the world. have formulated an ethic of care believed to I agree with the pragmatist feminist Charlene better characterize the moral decision making of Haddock Seigfried (1996) that all feminisms seek females than the modernist variety of Western to improve the lot of women. Making a moral theories centered in abstract . basic category of analysis, of course, also reval- This project posits differences between how ues women in relationship to men and leads to men and women conceptualize and practice interrogating the categories of sex and gender ethics and . The second feminist proj- themselves (Butler, 1990). As Tong (1998) ect, discussed more fully in other chapters in

Author’s Note: I want to acknowledge the assistance of Youngsek Kim in collecting material for this manuscript and the critical questions and generous care provided by Sharlene Hesse-Biber throughout its preparation. The work has benefited enormously from my mentors in philosophy, Victoria M. Davion and Beth F. Preston, who have no responsibility for any of my philosophical errors and misconceptions. 515 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 516

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this handbook and treated only tangentially served on my university’s institutional review here, is work by feminist social theorists and board, the human subjects research review com- philosophers who have contributed to the efforts mittee for U.S. universities, the same board that of poststructuralists, postcolonialists, and decided to approve the study of dying postmodernists to challenge the epistemological and their young children. At the start of the new assumptions of modern scientific practice. century I won a year’s support to study philoso- Calling into question presuppositions about the phy, working principally with a feminist nature of human beings, about the efficacy of and an epistemologist with feminist leanings. positivist and postpositivist research models, Writing this chapter has provided me an oppor- and about the relationship of knower to known, tunity to synthesize several literatures: feminist these feminist thinkers propose alternative ways theory, feminist social research, feminist to define, create, and assess human knowledge. research methods, qualitative research methods and design at its many intersections with femi- nism, general research ethics, feminist ethics HOW CAN SHE JUDGE? within the general area of ethics, and moral theory from philosophy. The material that I cite With apologies to Lorraine Code (1991) for throughout the chapter reflects both general adapting the title of her cogent consideration reading in these areas and the results of specific of , I offer here my own searches on feminist research ethics. position in the array of feminisms and the Finally, I offer some comments about what I approach I took in developing a chapter on ethics think I have learned about ethics over the years. in feminist research. First, ethics at best are frameworks that guide Where do I position myself as a feminist? decision making. They are not rules, regulations, At times I must admit to an eclectic feminism or laws. Even who claim absolute values because my positioning has varied by time, place, struggle with how those values apply in any given circumstances, and people. Having grown up in a situation. What makes ethical decisions difficult is conventional 1950s, upwardly mobile, European that several competing “” may be at stake or American family, I have lived an adulthood that several simultaneous “bads” are to be avoided. I some of those family members still consider may arrive at an adequate answer, but it is rarely unconventional: 40 years a teacher, 30 years an . Second, a review of a research plan for pro- academic, childless, divorced twice and married tection of human participants provides only input thrice. In my role as a social-foundations-of- from other researchers on obvious problematic education scholar, I aspire to be a multicultural issues; it does not guarantee that the researcher and global feminist. In my role as a qualitative will have no further ethical challenges. Third, research methodologist, this feminism blends feminist values of whatever kind provide us with with critical and postmodern perspectives and ethical frameworks for our decision making, but philosophical pragmatism. Educated as a progres- we must still prioritize those values and decide sive teacher in the 1960s and radicalized by how they are at play in any given situation. women’s liberation in the 1970s, I view change and continuity as the result of the dynamic dialec- tic among individuals in their ongoing and ever- FEMINISM AND ETHICS changing groups, communities, and collectivities. How does any of this qualify me to comment Two scholars, Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, on feminist research ethics and to make feminist epitomize the challenge of 20th-century femi- ethical judgments? My preparation as a scholar nism to modernism’s -based models of was in educational research from an anthropo- moral theory. Although many others have con- logical and ethnographic perspective. I have tributed to a relationship-based ethics, Gilligan been conducting and teaching qualitative and Noddings are responsible for producing research from a feminist perspective— what are now recognized as alternative feminist sometimes explicit and other times tacit—for 30 approaches to the European frameworks orga- years. For the past 15 of those 30 years, I have nizing ethics around such principles as , 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 517

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duties, , and consequences (Tong, 1993). Women consistently scored lower on his In this section I describe their orientations as measures of moral decision making because presented in two seminal texts and compare maintaining and fostering relationships were and contrast their ideas to previous moral theory, central to their responses. His premise that the moral development theory, and some of the most ethical person acts from universally philosophical premises underlying these ideas. applicable rights or virtues or obligations is con- sistent with the modernist assumption that human behavior, including ethical imperatives, A Gendered Moral Development is governed by universal laws. However, Working with Lawrence Kohlberg and collect- Gilligan insisted that women’s most sophisti- ing interviews on moral decision making herself, cated moral decision making was based on the Gilligan (1982) reported consistent empirical pat- value for relationship, not the value for princi- terns of differences between the reasoning of ple. Contingencies such as gender challenge the the men she studied and that of the women. She possibility of universality in human behavior rejected Kohlberg’s idea of universally invariant and thus undermine expectations for certainty stages of development for a developmental model and predictability in human activity. that accommodates the differing patterns of men Gilligan explains the differences between and women, pointing out that Kohlberg had how men and women make moral decisions and selected white, middle-class males for his work. accounts for overlaps in their maturation by rely- ing on psychodynamic (Chodorow, 1978) and psychodevelopmental theories (Erikson, 1968; Kohlberg’s Moral Development Levinson, 1978) of gender. Males and females Lawrence Kohlberg (1981), in the mid-20th often have different patterns of early experiences century, following up with Jean Piaget’s notions in the family, centering on attachment and sepa- of moral decision making as a developmental ration, and hence may view the world differently. process from simpler to more complex, formu- She supplements this framework with a sociohis- lated a theory to explain how people reason torical approach in considering how differential through their ethical choices (Colby & Kohlberg, experiences and views may have developed in 1987). He believed that all people mature through 19th- and 20th-century U.S. society. six invariant stages of moral decision making as Women, according to Gilligan, begin their they grow up. The six stages of moral develop- moral development interviews by asking more ment are interdependent with parallel develop- questions about the details of a decision, ment of cognitive abilities, and some people especially probing for the human relationships never reach the highest stages of functioning. involved. As they reason through their choices Kohlberg grouped the six stages of moral reason- and the justifications for these choices, they ing in three levels: preconventional, conventional, focus on relationships among people and not and postconventional. These levels represent a just the rules, norms, or laws that might operate maturation in concern from the self, to the com- in a given situation. Although aware of fairness munity, and to an abstracted all or universal. as one priority in an ethical dilemma, women According to Kohlberg, only a few people reach more commonly than men privilege the value of the final postconventional stage, the universal caring. They ask, “Does the decision indicate ethical principle orientation where individuals people’s caring for one another?” rather than make moral decisions on the basis of principles merely “Is the decision fair to everyone?” Among they have adopted for their own, such as the women, relationships are more likely to be con- Golden Rule. ceptualized as connected networks or webs of reciprocities than as rule-governed hierarchies of authority and obedience among separate Relationship Versus Principle individuals. At both the conventional and postconven- Gilligan formulates women’s decision mak- tional levels, Kohlberg saw people making deci- ing as maturing through three stages according sions on the basis of rules, laws, and principles. to how women think through their views of 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 518

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selfishness and responsibility. An initial focus challenges to philosophical premises embedded on the self and on self-interested decisions in Gilligan’s work were approached more where the is what is good for the individ- directly by Nel Noddings in her 1984 formula- ual is succeeded by a focus on others and on tion of caring. selfless decisions where the good is what is good for the individual’s network or web of An Ethic of Care others. In the third stage, women recognize a responsibility to self as well as others and seek Noddings begins by observing that contem- to make decisions where the good is a caring porary ethics has been dominated by choices choice for everyone that allows networks of over the right normative principle, whether relationships to be maintained. As the individual rights, , consequences, or something else, struggles to balance self with other, the confor- and by a focus on logical reasoning believed to mity and desire to be “good” of the middle stage contribute to making decisions based on the develops into a desire for honesty and truth in right principle. She calls these “the language of the third stage. In the third stage, women criti- the father.” She proposes introducing into ethics cally examine their personal needs for care and the “’s voice.” The feminine approach to compassion, assess intentions and consequences ethics Noddings endorses is rooted in the rela- independent of how they might be viewed by tionship of caring and being cared for. In a others, transform their notion of reciprocity into recent edition of her text (2003), she emphasizes an understanding of interdependence, and come that “relations, not individuals, are ontologically to a sense of responsibility and integrity for their basic” to ethical decisions (p. xiii). When caring choices. Gilligan concludes that balancing rights must be prescribed as an obligation or duty, then and duties is the challenge for all adults, male the relation is with social expectations and not and female, but that men and women formulate the other, not the thou, and what Nodding calls these values and how to prioritize them differ- natural caring is diverted into something like the ently. Individuals learn that the ideals of care and principle: People behave in a caring man- fairness can never be achieved fully for everyone ner because that is the right thing to do. in any particular decision, but that care, responsi- Noddings labels her endeavor a “practical bility, fairness, and rights all enter the mix when ethics” conceptualized from what she believes autonomous choices are to be made. women commonly do when faced with ethical Both Kohlberg and Gilligan show that the dilemmas. Although they may consider princi- competing normative moral theories of rights, ples and may reason through decisions, women duties, consequences, and such come alive in consider the feelings involved and the relation- alternatives when people are making real ethical ships among the people in the situation. The car- choices. What Gilligan does, however, is chal- ing relationship involves the one-caring and the lenge some of the philosophical premises under- cared-for in an interaction to which both con- lying Kohlberg’s more rigid and narrow view of tribute, but often asymmetrically. The one- moral decision making. In her 1982 text, caring, a generic she in Noddings’s account, Gilligan argued against privileging the abstract acts from the satisfaction of experiencing the over the concrete, the principle over the rela- feeling of care and from an interest, absorption, tionship, the absolute over the relative, the uni- or engrossment in the cared-for, Noddings’s versal over the particular, the objective over the generic he. The motive to care comes from pre- subjective, and the cognitive over the affective. vious experiences of being cared for and caring. She discussed real people in their material It is an affective aspiration lodged in relation- worlds, making decisions by trying to achieve ship rather than a pursuit of some principle, multiple values and make wise choices for satis- such as fairness or virtue. fying lives. These decisions undermine such Although caring is a feeling accessible to all, assumed binaries as objective and subjective or judgments based on caring are particular to a even absolute and relative and reveal them given situation and may not be applicable to more as ideal, if contradictory, states to which other situations where the particulars are differ- we aspire but which we never reach. Such ent. Here, Noddings rejects the binary of 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 519

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objectivism and relativism by noting how both ethical thought are present in the feminist may operate in any given circumstances. approach to ethics exemplified by these two Likewise, she notes that she depends on intu- scholars, but they are framed differently. These itionism and as well as rationality to traditions contribute to alternative ways of build her case for the ethic of caring—an eclec- formulating what is positive in a relationship, tic mix that refuses only absolutism. Caring, rather than as standards to emulate in decision according to Noddings, is a commitment to the making. Noddings’s philosophical assumptions, development of another. similar to the epistemological contributions of An ethic of care begins with what Noddings such philosophers as Bordo (1987) and Code (1984) believes is common to all humans, “a (1991), are inclusive and multidimensional, longing for goodness” (p. 27). It relies on the resisting such binaries as objective and subjec- capacity for empathy, a receptiveness to the tive, absolute and relativistic, for a more faceted experience of another that is both affective and consideration of what is at play in the assump- cognitive. Like Gilligan, she prefers a psycho- tions about how we experience the world and dynamic explanation for caring, finding its develop knowledge that underlie how we make source in the early development of the child in ethical choices (see the chapters in Part I). the family, but she precludes neither biological Noddings and Gilligan together offer a femi- nor social conditions as contributing to it. Men nist ethic based in relationship that challenges as well as women develop the capacity to care, the principled ethics of rights, justice, conse- but Noddings views caring as the predominant quences, and such. Interpreted by some as sug- response of women to ethical decisions. gesting essentialist assumptions that reduce She then takes the human commitment to human behavior to the unchangeable determin- care as a framework for an ethical ideal that ism of genetic sex typing (cf. Fuss, 1989, for an guides decision making. The ethical ideal is antiessentialist argument on the positive contri- an image people have of themselves as the butions of essentialism to feminist thought), one-caring, whose priority is to maintain rela- both scholars argue that patterns of difference tionship, “guided in what we do by three con- need not mean mutually exclusive thinking and siderations: how we feel, what the other expects action; both also emphasize the complicated and of us, and what the situational relationship requires socially embedded nature of moral decision of us” (p. 46). The ethical ideal is less a virtue making (cf., however, Lloyd’s [1996] challenge than an internalization of people’s selves in their to the dichotomy underlying the separation of best caring experiences. Conventions and other thought from emotion, of reason from intuition, social norms can be helpful in setting bound- in both conventional ethics and relational aries for care, but moral decision making is ethics). Their formulations of an ethic of care guided by caring and by the affective and have since been refined and elaborated by others cognitive requirements for caring. Caring is (e.g., Brabeck, 1989). what Noddings calls a “constrained ideal,” rid- But how does their thinking contribute to a dled with the guilt aroused from the necessity of feminist research ethic? To address this ques- selecting among competing priorities and from tion, I first summarize the development of a tra- facing the conflicts inherent to everyday living, dition of ethics for research practice. My focus but sustained by the joy of positive feelings on the United States is intended as one case from and intense engagement with another. among the cases worldwide of concerns for Thus, both Noddings and Gilligan shift the ethical research practice, not as the only way focus of ethics from principles and argumenta- societies and scholars have developed research tion to relationships and exploration of particu- ethics. I argue later that the principled orienta- lars. Neither gives up principles and arguments tion to research ethics as it has developed in the because consideration of both is necessary for United States in the past quarter century has deciding what is in the best interest of those in been challenged and, in some cases, has been relationship and for weighing the conditions and reformulated by feminist ethics—by the con- particulars that contribute to competing priori- cern with relationship, particularity, constraint, ties. The traditions of principle-based, Western and inclusion. 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 520

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RESEARCH ETHICS IN THE UNITED STATES all? What is right and wrong about studying people? What is intrinsically moral and ethical Throughout the 20th century, a collection of about inquiry into human endeavors, and how established status hierarchies were challenged, do we make that decision? Why should femi- and in many cases the authority of these struc- nists distract themselves from more important tures was overturned. Political colonialism was tasks to conduct research? My argument is that, dismantled; ethnic and racial civil rights move- although different feminists may find different ments around the world won civil and values in their research purposes, all feminists political participation for many; various world- understand that research itself is value laden wide women’s movements challenged and even rather than value neutral and hence are attempt- overturned patriarchal structures. In Western ing to realize some value through their research. societies, one of the hierarchies so challenged Some have addressed the question of research was the subject-researcher relationship. An ethic value by claiming that knowledge is superior of authority, where researchers decided what was to ignorance—that understanding by itself has best for those they studied, has been replaced by intrinsic value. The normative codes adopted by a participatory ethic, where researchers’ plans are such professional research organizations in the scrutinized by colleagues before being reviewed United States as the American Anthropological by potential participants, who are expected to Association (1998), the American Educational make their own free and informed decisions Research Association (2000), the American about consenting to the research. Psychological Association (2002),1 and the Consequently most discussions of ethics in American Sociological Association (1997) pre- social science and professional research focus on scribe knowledge generation as good.2 who is being studied—the human subjects, partic- Many feminists likewise value knowledge over ipants, or coresearchers. How people are sought, ignorance. Much of the initial feminist research studied, and recompensed for research studies in the 1970s, for example, focused on differential became such a crucial ethical issue in the 20th patterns of experience and behavior among men century that nations such as the United States and women (e.g., Goetz, 1978; Goetz & Grant, developed federal guidelines regulating research 1988) to demonstrate that scholarship on men on human beings. The relationship between the could not be assumed to represent knowledge studied and the studier, between the inquirer and about women. Gilligan’s (1982) work in women’s those inquired about, is a defining attribute of moral development exemplifies this pattern. research in the human, social, and professional Another justification for research appeals to sciences, but it has been abstract principle rather nature. Our animal physiology and development than caring that frames most conventional thought revolves around sensing the environment, stor- about this relationship (e.g., National Research ing and using the information acquired, and Council, 2003). In this section, I address the ethi- learning from this process. We could argue that, cal problems and controversies that ongoing as particular kinds of beings, we are predisposed human relationships pose, but I add to this the eth- genetically to seek information, to know, to ical implications of formulating research goals understand. Although this natural law justifica- and of representing those studied in research tion frames much of 19th-century feminist reports. Of course goals, relationships, and repre- demand for equality of treatment (Traina, 1999), sentations are not mutually exclusive categories of most feminist thought is ambivalent about research conduct; they are all interacting facets of appeals to biology. This may be changing with the research experience. I separate them for such feminist challenges to conventional evolu- heuristic purposes to ensure that the ethical impli- tionary theory as that of Gowaty (1997) and cations of each are addressed directly. Waage and Gowaty (1997), whose genetic research disputes sexist assumptions about Ethics of Research Purpose biology in the notion of biology as destiny (cf. Haraway, 1989; Harding, 1998). What is the value of conducting research Most cultures around the world incorporate with human beings? Why should we do this at in their , their belief systems, some 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 521

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presumption of an intrinsic value of knowledge— provides such an ethical purpose for the knowledge is good. Here it is a virtue, and that inquirer. Daly’s work, generally grouped with becomes its justification. Or because knowledge , embraces gender separatism is taken as inherently good, we can understand it as best promoting the interests of women, a as a duty to pursue. The Western scientific move- position some other feminists find objection- ment (Harmon, 1996) arising during the able. Such profound disagreements prompt the European Enlightenment was based on the idea question of what values are served by the quest that knowledge is freeing—that it provides an for knowledge. alternative to superstition, to religious orthodoxy, During the Enlightenment, the religious and to feudal authority. This assumption of the premise—service to god—became a service to intrinsic value of knowledge is deeply embedded the human community, and the idea was trans- in feminist thought. Around the world, women’s formed into the consequentialist philosophy of access to knowledge and to education provides right action being what benefits the community. the means to improving their lives (Bloom, 1998; Here, what made knowing and inquiry good Martin, 1985; Sexton, 1976). DeVault (1999), in were more or less direct consequences—study her survey of feminism and social research, is good because it promotes more effective stresses the value of revealing hitherto invisible behavior or better solutions to human problems knowledge. Throughout her text, she emphasizes (Reason, 1996). Seeking knowledge that fosters not only neglected experiences but also correc- social change and the transformation of tive research—studies that provide views of societies into better places for women to live, women’s experiences that are alternatives to where they may “liberate themselves from gender-insensitive portrayals. oppression” (Tong, 1998, p. 280), is arguably Nevertheless, cultures often offer the antithe- one of the common threads among many femi- sis of knowledge being good as a second nisms. In her characterization of feminist attribute. Knowledge can be bad—it can be research, Reinharz (1992, p. 240) likewise painful, disillusioning, frightening, and destruc- includes “creation of social change” as one of tive. Fonow and Cook (1991) briefly acknowl- 10 common themes. However, the question of edge how the intimate and personal nature of who benefits from research requires that we also what many participants reveal in feminist ask who may be harmed by the inquiry and the research may generate knowledge that they and knowledge produced, and what benefits are other women might prefer to avoid. This privileged at the cost of alternative goods. suggests that the intrinsic nature of knowledge Feminist researchers vary in how they conceptu- may be neither good nor bad—but good or bad alize harms and benefits and thus how they frame according to its content and the purposes to their studies (see Hesse-Biber & Leckenby, 2004, which it is put, in context and in relation to the for commonalities among the diversity of femi- knower and the known. Knowledge per se then nist social research). becomes integral to other values, and knowl- Addressing the cost-benefit issue requires edge as inherently political is a fundamental consideration of relationships of power. How claim of 20th-century Western feminisms (e.g., power and the distribution of resources are Harding, 1987; Stanley & Wise, 1993). considered among feminists varies, of course. The idea of an intrinsic value of knowledge is Among Marxist, socialist, and postmodern femi- related to the view of knowing and the search nists concern for power differentials is commonly for truth as constituting a form of worship. In integrated into research goals (Naples, 2003), revealing the mystery of life and of others, the often with the intention of disturbing or disman- knower is affirming a value beyond self—god, tling conventional arrangements of power, as nature, community, or cosmos. However, the Fine (1992) has attempted in a number of her value is conceptualized; the search is a way of research endeavors and as many standpoint theo- respecting and honoring god, nature, commu- rists advocate (e.g., Harding, 2004). nity, cosmos, or other value beyond self. Among The call for research to serve women’s inter- feminists, ’s (1978) mystical formu- ests has come from many feminist scholars, and lation of an essential, natural female beingness justifications for feminist research are as diverse 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 522

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as feminism itself, or feminisms themselves. compares racial and gender biases in her discus- Eichler (1988) proposes nonsexist inquiry, sion of how researchers’ assumptions, questions, including women’s perspectives to achieve a procedures, and conceptualization of data reflect more representative knowledge of humanity, a social values that prejudice the knowledge gener- goal reflecting issues of fairness or justice. ated. Roman and Apple (1990) offer a set of However, Du Bois (1983) has sought research questions for feminist researchers to consider in that would “address women’s lives and experi- assessing how well their endeavors serve the ence in their own terms, to create theory integrity and purposes of their participants (cf. grounded in the actual experience and language Grossman et al., 1997; Massat & Lundy, 1997). of women” (p. 108), moving the emphasis from Finally, Allen and Baber (1992) summarize the creating balance to valuing research on women limitations of goals, such as those voiced by fem- for its own sake. Here, a concern for justice or inists, that seek to transform the lives of others— fairness, in Eichler’s rationale, becomes care for risks of homogenizing diversity among women, or interest in the particular. In Smith’s (1987) of co-opting or subverting others’ visions of formulation, women’s positions, experiences, themselves and goals for themselves, of losing and views of the world are standpoints that lack public relevance in overemphasizing the per- cultural representation: sonal, of trading the universal for the particular. Acker, Barry, and Esseveld (1991), for example, The issue is more than bias. It is more than simply in their study of women’s entry and reentry into an omission of certain kinds of topics. It involves the labor force, found that women participants do taking up the standpoint of women as an experi- not always share researchers’ desires for their ence of being, of society, of social and personal emancipation. process that must be given form and expression in Feminist researchers from a variety of disci- the culture, whether as knowledge, as art, or as plines have tried to assure that their studies serve literature or political action. (p. 36) women’s purposes by including participants in the formulation, planning, conduct, and analysis Smith and other standpoint theorists (e.g., of the work. Some scholars may formulate this as Harding, 2004) insist that research is always a kind of feminist participatory action research carried out by someone in a particular position (PAR), but others consider it integral to the femi- and that understanding the purpose of a study nism they practice (Tolman & Brydon-Miller, requires understanding the position of the 2001). Fine (1992), for example, builds a strong researcher. case that conventional and interpretive research, Like Du Bois and Smith, Lather (1991) however much influenced by feminist perspec- denies neutrality in research. She calls for tives, cannot relieve women’s oppression as “research as praxis,” or research to serve the effectively as does activist participatory feminist purposes of social justice, for a feminist research. research to put gender at the center of inquiry. Participatory feminist research has had The intent is both to make the gendered facet of mixed success, depending on research partici- human identity clear in any study of humans pants’ interest in and commitment to the and to redress implicit and explicit gender endeavor. As might be expected, this varies inequities. Lather proposes that, to assure greatly. For example, Seibold’s (2000) study of awareness of choice in the values directing any the experience of menopause of single midlife study, feminist researchers must consider and women was assured some value for women reconsider their own purposes and approaches because she herself had experienced menopause in self-reflexive critique (cf. Doucet & as a single middle-aged and because Mauthner, 2002). Collins (1990) elaborates the participant concerns guided her selection, col- feminist agenda by cautioning that studying lection, and analysis of information. Paradis gender without concern for race and class (2000), on the other hand, had not experienced merely privileges some experiences of margin- the homelessness she wanted to study in an ality without addressing the complexities of urban setting, and she details the variety of issues human oppression. Longino (1994) likewise that feminist professionals face when trying to 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 523

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plan a study both on and for homeless women. balances of resources and decision making do McGraw, Zvonkovic, and Walker (2000) these roles represent? These questions are increased interest in their study of work and addressed in part by consideration of the family life among Northwest fishing families researchers’ roles and interactions with those by adding to their objectives a goal specified researched. Feminists have been at the forefront by their female participants that could be con- of challenging conventional researcher roles and strued as antifeminist by some. However, both interactions with those researched, just as they this study and another by Skelton (2001) of have been at the forefront of challenging the female youth in Wales indicate how researchers neutrality of research purpose. must prioritize even feminist goals. Both studies show researchers focusing on how women want Ethics of Research Roles and Conduct to view goals they themselves formulate, regardless of how well these goals fit a particu- In the past 30 years ethical codes provided by lar feminist agenda. the U.S. government and various U.S. profes- Ironically, feminist principles or policies sional groups have regulated the participation of may or may not foster feminist care. Patai people in research studies. Such codes have set (1991) believes that the undeniable and parameters for the conduct of research that inevitable inequities between researchers and constrain all scholars, and the codes themselves those they study make unavoidable a certain may be challenged by emerging feminist prac- level of exploitation in research. She counsels tices. The current professional standards of humility in our claims to benefit others and research conduct toward study participants have courage to continue research that is ethical been influenced by 20th-century transgressions enough without being ethically perfect (cf. of human rights, neglect of respect for others, Gillies & Alldred, 2002). and violations of conventional standards of In this section, I have explored what I have decency in the United States and elsewhere called the ethics of research purpose. Feminist (Jones, 1981; War Crimes Tribunal, 1947; World scholars from the spectrum of feminisms have Medical Association, 1975). The Kantian formulated their research purposes for the ethical imperative (Tong, 1993) that people be values they seek to realize, and these are ethical treated as ends, rather than as means, was ignored choices. The ethics of principle, especially in the name of research time and again over the social justice, and the have been course of the 20th century. the predominant rationales used by feminist The National Research Act, a U.S. law passed researchers to justify their endeavors. Feminist in 1974, resulted in the development of a set of research in the 1970s and 1980s, with its focus principles, summarized in the Belmont Report, on sex differences, was more explicitly con- governing human participation in research stud- cerned with equity per se. We sought to expose ies: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice inequalities in resources and power and to dis- (National Commission for the Protection of credit claims that women were somehow lesser Human Subjects of Medical and Behavioral men. More recent feminist research, informed by Research, 1979). These principles frame a code Gilligan, Noddings, and others, has been more of conduct requiring informed of those preoccupied with a responsive research that studied, assessment of the balance of risk to attends to the goals of participants. benefit in any research, and fairness in selection However, the goals and objectives of of human participants. This is the guide used research are only one facet of the ethical issues around the United States by the institutional in research. Feminists and other emancipatory review boards (IRBs) charged with the protec- theorists share additional concerns. What inter- tion of human subjects of research by reviewing ests are served and what are ignored or imper- and approving research proposals. Its focus iled in a particular study? Who will have access is on what happens during the period when data to the knowledge produced, who decides this, are collected. Although beneficence requires and how is it decided? Who gets to be the researchers to consider the morality of the inquirer and who is the inquired about? What research itself—Will the presumed benefits 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 524

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outweigh any harm to participants?—the lives that is ultimately controlled by the emphasis is on the people directly involved. researcher. I elaborate on the latter concern in Likewise, the justice principle is often inter- the next section. preted to mean justice for those involved, rather In 1981, Oakley found the conventional than justice more broadly; this may be changing research relationship unfeminist, but a decade as concerns have increased about funding for later, Stacey questioned whether conventional offshore research in circumstances less regu- research itself might be unfeminist (however, cf. lated than in the United States. Kirsch, 1999, pp. 42–43, for how the vagaries of Much of the initial feminist commentary ordinary relationships are inevitable in research on research relationships occurred within the relationships too, and Wolf, 1996, for how same time frame—the 1980s and into the early research conventions may be used to further fem- 1990s—that IRBs were being set up around the inist efforts in fieldwork). Between these posi- United States. I believe that feminist researchers tions are efforts of many feminist researchers were responding, in part, to the same climate to reform the exploitative hierarchy of the of criticism of conventional research practice researcher and the researched, and these efforts and policy (Barnbaum & Byron, 2001) that have affected a generation of feminist practice prompted governmental intervention: concern (Romyn, 1996). Fisher (2000), for example, over a proliferation of research studies that endorses a process that brings research partici- manipulated and endangered people. pants into the moral decision making such that The feminist response to protection based on the ethics of any study may be considered not principle is a challenge to the assumed division only by researchers and peer review boards, but between who is the researcher and the knower also by those to be studied. and who is the researched or the known. The What happens when feminist researchers principles themselves may be inoffensive, even strive to put these policies of reciprocity into desirable, given our history of research abuses, practice? As might be expected, this varies. but they assume a relationship and an ethics Gatenby and Humphries (2000), in their PAR governing relationship that many feminist with Maori participants in higher education, scholars have found problematic (e.g., Edwards report a level of success that may have been fos- & Mauthner, 2002; England, 1994; Robertson, tered by a study of women educating themselves 2000). An initial challenge to the researcher as in ways they themselves selected. Knight detached, protective expert is Oakley’s (1981) (2000) similarly engaged members of an educa- classic comment on interviewing. In a study tion community to improve and to document of expectant mothers, Oakley found herself their work with diverse communities and thus restricted by expectations of distance and drew on participants’ own aspirations in framing detachment from her participants and especially her research. On the other hand, Morris-Roberts hampered by the asymmetry of the interviewer (2001) was challenged to maintain equity in as the questioner and the respondent as the her relationships with the teenage she was answerer. She found these expectations contra- studying when she began to observe some of dictory to her commitment to caring about the them bullying others and felt impelled to inter- women as individuals, to establishing authentic vene. In another study of young women, Morris, relationships with them, and to offering what- Woodward, and Peters (1998) also report being ever she knew that might improve their lives challenged for their affiliation among the partic- (cf., however, Oakley’s [2000] reconsideration ipants in the study. These studies suggest that of the deeper gender assumptions underlying reducing the ethical tensions of unequal status such dichotomies as qualitative and quantitative may only open the way to the ethical dilemmas research). Stacey (1991) took this argument fur- of living among peers. Choices in affiliation are ther, finding that fieldwork requires researchers complicated further when the researcher is oper- to misrepresent themselves and to manipulate ating across levels of institutional status, as participants. Her second issue with a feminist Weinberg (2002) reports in a study of a facility ethnography is that the product, the ethnogra- for single mothers in Ontario. She was pressed phy, is a representation of participants and their to balance her allegiance between the female 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 525

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clients and the female staff. How ethical decisions to consider those they are studying as fellow may vary according to the differing interests of human beings with their own goals, priorities, diverse research participants and the variety of and agendas. They aid feminist researchers, for contexts researchers may encounter is illus- example, in balancing feminist agendas with trated well by Vivat’s (2002) ethnographic study those claimed by the women we may be study- of a hospice in Scotland; Vivat uses the notion of ing. What principle-based ethics do not do is “situated ethics” as a contrast with a principle- address the situation-specific quality of human based “detached ethics.” relationships and interactions. The ethic of care Robertson’s (2000) study of bulimia among provides a systematic model for an engaged and adult women indicates other issues when study- reciprocal relationship with research participants. ing individuals from an assumed position of It gives us a set of priorities for decision making equity. First, as a recovered bulimic, she notes the that takes into account the specifics of who we researcher’s care of self as part of a responsibility are while we study ourselves and our similar- to protect everyone in a research endeavor, echo- to-different others (Gluck & Patai, 1991a). ing both Gilligan’s and Noddings’s emphasis on Nevertheless, feminist ethnographer Bell (1993), self-care as an indication of maturity. Second, she who summarizes her development over a period found that sharing data and results with some of years from a “naïve feminist empiricist stance” participants put them at risk of psychological dis- to an appreciation of how the politics of feminism tress that contributing information had not. and power differentials operate in field situations, Third, a request from a participant to interview cautions that “feminist ethnography opens a dis- the researcher about her own experience with cursive space for the ‘subjects’ of the ethnogra- bulimia permitted Robertson a view of her ethical phy and as such is simultaneously empowering practice she had not previously had. Finally, like and destabilizing” (p. 31). Patai (1991), Robertson emphasizes the ethical Although the ethic of care permits us to considerations in ending the research relationship. judge the quality of our researcher roles and This is yet another power difference between human interactions in a research study, it does researchers and their participants. not eliminate our ethical dilemmas. The chal- Intimate, equitable relationships pose ethical lenges of research remain, the asymmetries cre- dilemmas that distant, hierarchical relationships ated by the different interests of researchers, may avoid (see Avis, 2002). Birch and Miller participants, and even researcher-participants are (2002) and Duncombe and Jessop (2002) report inevitable, and unanticipated issues may plague experiences with attempting to put their feminist researchers who have added new sets of expec- principles into practice that indicate the pitfalls tations to their notions of ideal research prac- and hazards of all human relationships. Bingley tice. The principle of respect for persons that I (2002) suggests incorporating approaches from discussed previously as guiding U.S. informed psychotherapy into research practice so as to consent may be a less demanding ethical pre- better address these pitfalls and hazards. De Laine cept for research conduct than is the ethic of (2000) provides extensive examples of the assault care, which demands that we acknowledge a on a researcher’s psyche such difficulties create. relationship of whatever kind we seek. To the Wolf (1996) discusses the disadvantages that extent that an ethic of care becomes the major fieldworkers who are members of a field commu- influence on our research conduct, our responsi- nity encounter because of the conflicts between bilities are much greater (Gluck & Patai, their insider role and their researcher role and 1991b). Publishing and otherwise presenting or stresses what she considers as power differentials disseminating the research adds to the levels of between researchers and participants that compli- complexity in ethical decision making. I turn to cate friendships in the field. What all these this next. examples suggest is that moving from a codified and principle-based set of ethical standards to an Ethics of Representation ethic of care does not resolve ethical dilemmas. The principle-based ethics of respect for The ethics of representation is the good or persons, beneficence, and justice helps researchers ill that results from how participants are 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 526

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represented in publications, presentations, and material that critiques those who create these other reports of research. Feminists have a conventional images, and material that calls for particular stake in the ethics of representation direct action to rectify inequities. She struggles because of what many of us believe to have been to address our multiple, interacting identities as misrepresentations of women and our experi- women, individuals whose abilities, ethnic and ences. The androcentric scholarship that femi- racial backgrounds, religious affiliations, and nist thinkers such as Code (1991, 1995) find so sexual orientations vary. She advocates studying objectionable both ignores and distorts women’s the powerful as well as the powerless. lives and views (cf. Richardson, 1997). Fine stresses that although our identities are Feminists have led the way in challenging how fluid and changeable, they nevertheless associ- people are represented in the human and profes- ate us more with some in our communities than sional sciences. Will research participants be with others. These groups and affiliations can be distressed when they learn how they are caricatured and stereotyped in ways that hamper described, characterized, and interpreted? Will and hurt both individuals and communities. they agree with how they are represented? Will Even more important is positioning of self and individuals be placed at risk from others in their other at what Fine calls “the hyphen.” This situation or from the general public by how metaphor invites the reader to reflect on the self they are presented? Will other people—other as other and the other as self. How might I write teenagers, others from bulimia, other differently about my experiences with my single mothers, for example—face difficulties in research participants if I write about “we” or if I their lives because of how those who share their write about an “I and thou” relationship? The attributes are represented? ethics of relationships provide models of con- The feminist ethic of care provides moral nections with those we study. These sources and justification for the concern expressed by schol- the other strategies Fine suggests permit us to ars such as Hopkins (1993) for relationships work the hyphen, to problematize rather than to with research participants and for the desire to assume the relationships between researcher support their pride and avoid embarrassing and researched (cf. Alldred & Gillies, 2002). them. Another ethical challenge to feminist rep- Thus, Robertson (2000) is working the hyphen resentations is the assumption of homogeneity when she agrees to be interviewed by a research among women whose points of view and participant about her own struggle with bulimia. experiences vary considerably by race, ethnic- Stacey (1991) works the hyphen by insisting ity, class, religion, sexual orientation, and their that feminist ethnographers take responsibility ability-disability conditions. Having objected to for an ethically imperfect research practice. being portrayed as no different than men in Wolf’s (1992) representation of a young social science research, white women scholars mother’s unconventional behavior in a village in have been challenged by scholars of color, by Taiwan through three different genres—field queer theorists, and by others with divergent notes, a conventional ethnographic report, and a points of view to honor, respect, and celebrate short story—was intended to illustrate many of the diversity of women’s experiences and views the complications of the ethics of representation. of the world (e.g., hooks, 1984; Lewin, 1995). She discusses the “double responsibility” In a now-classic formulation about represent- of “feminists doing research on women,” ing others in what we write and present about responsible both to their women participants and them, Fine (1994) struggles with the conven- to the broader world of women whose lives we tions, positioning, and hierarchies that produce hope to improve. She cautions that power is not a mostly offstage author writing a tidy image of merely held by researchers over participants but players. The writing itself, who writes whom, by participants who make their own decisions creates imbalances in power and an inevitable about what to share with, withhold from, or dis- “othering” of participants. Fine advocates tort for investigators. Having shown the multiple addressing this issue by “working the hyphens.” and competing views of one woman’s interac- She does this by presenting material that defies tions with her neighbors, Wolf nevertheless wor- stereotypes and conventional images of people, ries about the academic consequences to feminist 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 527

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scholars of being forthright about acknowledg- CONCLUSION ing the power that participants may exert. Some feminist researchers attempt to address What I have tried to do in this chapter, first, the ethics of representation by limiting their is show the connections and disconnections studies to collaborative research or PAR or to between the Western approach to ethics devel- such personal endeavors as autoethnography oped in academic philosophy, especially as it (Ellis, 2004) and experimental ethnography applies to women, and the challenge to that ethics (Visweswaran, 1994). Others ask research par- posed in the 20th century by feminist ethicists. ticipants to “vet” or otherwise edit or approve data Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings challenged the and even interpretations that involve them. privileging of principle-based decision making, Disputed material may be omitted or disagree- and they reconceptualized moral theory to ments about material may be included in reports. include the ethics of relation. Second, I have Reports and presentations may be composed so as linked this to general research ethics as applied to include multiple voices and commentators— by many social scientists and to ethical practices researcher, researched, and other stakeholders developed among researchers using an explicitly (Blakeslee, Cole, & Conefrey, 1996). Researchers feminist approach. Although many feminist Kirsch (1999) and Mortensen and Kirsch (1996) researchers continue to be guided by such ethical examine the multiple ways researchers have principles as justice, most have integrated an struggled with the moral and ethical issues of rep- ethic of care and relationship into their conduct of resentation and conclude that every alternative has research. In this chapter, I have examined how its strengths and limitations. these two frameworks play out in how we femi- In a study of women activists on both sides of nists formulate our research purposes, how we the abortion debate, Ginsburg (1993) considers work with others in the research, and how we rep- the issue of representation as broader than the resent those we study in our research reports. particular individuals directly involved in her However, feminist ethics do not resolve study; she uses the notion of polyphony, devel- moral dilemmas in research. Women studying oped by the Russian literary scholar Mikhail women, about women or with women, for the Mikhailovich Bakhtin, to generate a multifaceted purpose of relieving women’s oppression and and heterogeneous presentation of her research. reconfiguring androcentric knowledge into a Zeni, Prophete, Cason, and Phillips (2001) sim- more inclusive understanding of “huwomanity,” ilarly apply Collins’s (1990) analysis of African complicates the research process. This is the American feminists to represent multiple per- pattern attested to by many of the feminist spectives held by individuals in diverse commu- researchers I have cited here. Feminist ethics nities. In contrast, Mills (2002) finds the likely generate as many issues as they may help authentic representation of even a single indi- either avoid or address. This is particularly evi- vidual to pose a challenge to the skills and dent in trading a detached, distant, and hierar- knowledge of researchers—how to move from chical stance for an intimate, close, and autobiography to biography in a way faithful equitable position. Distance and intimacy create and respectful of the subject. Jacobs (2004) their own problems. recounts a different issue in representation in Even within sets of coherent guidelines lie her study of the experiences of females during troubling tensions. The feminist project is the Holocaust where the death of those she stud- deeply grounded in the principle of justice. ies does not relieve her sense of ethical obliga- Women’s rights have traditionally been justified tion to them. The tension expressed by all these by the values of equity and equality. The ethic of researchers is underscored by their relationships care and relationship does not preclude consid- to those they study. In representing their partic- eration of principle but may provide a parallel ipants, they are also representing themselves formulation of human rights and responsibilities and facets of themselves that they share with the to one another. Nevertheless, philosophers such participants. Similarity and difference merge, as Jean Grimshaw (1991) caution feminists and the ethics of research become the ethics of about the implications of claiming an ethics that everyday life. may place women back into a gendered ghetto. 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 528

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Similarly the conventional binaries of univer- 2. Noticeably missing from this list is the sal and particular, relativism and absolutism, National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA). objectivism and subjectivism, realism and NWSA does have an ethics policy (see www.nwsa idealism—like that of man and woman—may .org/govern/policy.php#ethics,retrievedDecember14, no longer adequately represent conceptual posi- 2005), but it focuses on relationships among members tions that admit subjectivity to objective study and says nothing directly about research ethics. or locate categories of particulars as universals. Feminist ethicists (e.g., Held, 1987) and femi- nist epistemologists (e.g., Moody-Adams, 1997) REFERENCES are rejecting the view of ethical frameworks as either inevitably universal, absolute, objective, Acker, J., Barry, K., & Esseveld, J. (1991). Objectivity and real or alternatively particular, relative, sub- and truth: Problems in doing feminist research. In jective, and ideal. The ethics of relationship that M. M. Fonow & J. A. Cook (Eds.), Beyond Gilligan and Noddings have pioneered are methodology: Feminist scholarship as lived grounded in the subjective, the particular, and research (pp. 133–153). Bloomington: Indiana the relative, but neither scholar denies the rele- University Press. vance of a universal principle like justice. Alldred, P., & Gillies, V. (2002). Eliciting research Likewise the formal and static roles once accounts: Re/producing modern subjects? In M. assumed in research designs have given way to Mauthner, M. Birch, J. Jessop, & T. Miller (Eds.), circumstances where the researcher may research Ethics in qualitative research (pp. 146–165). herself, where she may be researching others London: Sage. while others research her, or where research itself Allen, K. R., & Baber, K. M. (1992). Ethical and becomes part and parcel of everyday public and epistemological tensions in applying a postmod- private life—no longer limited to the purview of ern perspective to feminist research. Psychology an expert with esoteric training unavailable to of Women Quarterly, 16(1), 1–15. ordinary people (see Benhabib, 1992). However, American Anthropological Association. (1998). Code even with such an expansion and democratization of ethics of the American Anthropological of inquiry, ethical dilemmas and issues will still Association. Retrieved December 14, 2005, from arise. Balancing the interests of individuals and www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethcode.htm communities is an ongoing human enterprise. American Educational Research Association. Ameliorating old oppressions and preventing new (2000). Ethical standards of AERA. Retrieved forms of exploitation is a global endeavor. December 14, 2005, from www.aera.net/about Satisfying what can be competing needs for aera/?id=222 knowledge of and action for the oppressed and American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical exploited in situations where people disagree principles of psychologists and code of conduct. among themselves about what is happening to Retrieved December 14, 2005, from www.apa them makes ethical choices complex. Attending to .org/ethics/code2002.html both secular and sacred human interests when American Sociological Association. (1997). Code of people dispute which of these should prevail is an ethics. Retrieved December 14, 2005, from asanet ongoing challenge. What the ethics of relationship .org/page.ww?section=Ethics&name=Ethics have added to the ethics of principle is a comple- Avis, H. (2002). Whose voice is that? Making space mentary framework that permits a different layer for subjectivities in interviews. In L. Bondi, of consideration in these thorny difficulties. H. Avis, R. Bankey, A. Bingley, J. Davidson, R. Duffy, et al. (Eds.), Subjectivities, knowl- edges, and feminist geographies: The subjects NOTES and ethics of social research (pp. 191–207). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 1. The American Psychological Association has Barnbaum, D. R., & Byron, M. (2001). Research also published an anthology on feminist ethics in psy- ethics: Text and readings. Upper Saddle River, chology (Brabeck, 2000). NJ: Prentice Hall. 26-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 9/12/2006 10:03 PM Page 529

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