Ethics, Reflexivity and Research: Encounters with Homeless People

Abstract

This paper reflects on ethical issues raised in research with homeless people in rural areas. It argues that the significant embracing of dialogic and reflexive approaches to social research is likely to render standard approaches to ethical research practice increasingly complex and open to negotiation. Diary commentaries from different individuals in the research team are used to present self-reflexive accounts of the ethical complexities and dilemmas encountered in offering explanations of the validity of the research, in carrying out ethnographic encounters with homeless people and in producing and evaluating the outputs of research. Reflexivity does not dissolve ethical tensions, but opens up possibilities for new ethical and moral maps with which to explore ethical terrains more appropriately and more honestly.