Researching with Care – Participatory Health Research with Afghan Women Refugees in Germany During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Case with Commentaries

ABSTRACT

This article comprises a short case exemplifying ethical challenges arising for a participatory researcher working with Afghan women refugees during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. The researcher is an Iranian-German woman, qualified as a midwife, undertaking doctoral research on refugees’ access to reproductive health care. Disclosures about some women’s experience of domestic violence are made, which raise ethical issues for the researcher relating to personal-professional boundaries, roles and responsibilities. Two commentaries are given on this case from participatory researchers based in Germany, UK and Austria. Both commentaries highlight the relevance of the ethics of care for participatory research and for this research in particular, which entails very close relationships between the doctoral researcher and the refugee women with whom she is researching. The first commentary analyses the research process in terms of Tronto’s five phases of care, while the second illustrates the importance of caring institutions in supporting researchers working on sensitive topics.

KEYWORDS:

• Participatory health research
• Afghan women refugees
• ethical challenges
• ethics of care
• domestic violence

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the women who participated in the research, and to fellow members of the Ethics Working Group of the International Collaboration for Participatory Research for supportive discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Naseem S. Tayebi

Naseem S. Tayebi is a public health doctoral student in the IBE institute, Medical Faculty of Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich. She is Iranian-German, and a public health and midwife specialist in qualitative and participatory health research in reproductive and maternal health with migrants and refugees.

Marilena von Köppen

Marilena von Köppen is research assistant at the Institute of Social Medicine & Health Systems Research, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany and PhD candidate in the Department of Nursing and Health, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany. She has a particular interest in ethics in participatory research, ethics of care and participatory research with older people.

Petra Plunger

Petra Plunger is a senior health expert at the Austrian National Public Health Institute (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH). She has a particular interest in health promotion and caring communities, ageing, dementia and participatory health research and ethics.

Susanne Börner

Susanne Börner was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow until February 2023, and is now Assistant Professor in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham. She has a particular interest in participatory research with youth on urban wellbeing and youth everyday agency in contexts of resource insecurity and disaster risk.

Sarah Banks

Sarah Banks is Professor in the Department of Sociology and co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action, Durham University, UK. She coordinates the Ethics Working Group of the International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research and has a particular interest in ethics in participatory research.