[Last modified: December, 4 2024 12:21 PM]
My group and I discussed a student wishing to study Women survivors of domestic abuse in Pakistan. Reading through the case study several ethical issues were immediately apparent to us. Firstly, the student had previously interned at the women’s refuge they wished to use as the field site. As such, there is an inherent power dynamic as the student has previously been in a position of power and care over the potential interlocutors. This is only compounded by the fact that the women of this refuge are in a particularly vulnerable position having recently relocated for their security and safety. As a result, the women cannot provide free and full consent, and their vulnerable status would result in a high risk classification of this study.
Secondly, the student is seeking to include previous data collected during their time working at the refuge which was published in the local press. There are several issues with this, primarily the previous data was collected prior to any ethical clearance or approval. As a result, it would not be allowed to be included in the work and the student would need to collect a new data set. In addition, the published article included the woman’s name and therefore issues of anonymity and data protection are raised. If the same data is used in the student’s thesis the woman’s identity may be revealed by virtue of her story and name being published in the press.
With these factors in mind, a risk-benefit analysis would indicate that the risks to the vulnerable women of this refuge would far outweigh the potential benefits of this study. Consequently, it is unlikely this student’s proposed study would be approved as it stands. To improve the likelihood of approval the student could alter the study to focus on women who have left the refuge and are now safely and securely resettled. Similarly, changing this study to use a domestic field site would be beneficial as there are issues with travel warnings to Pakistan as well an issue of gaining ethical clearance from a local research body. Neither of these adjustments would entirely change the students’ themes, they could still consider issues of domestic violence and could still use Pakistani participants, however adjusting the location and field site setting would mitigate some of the ethical concerns outlined above.