There is a growing literature on using the senses in research. This scholarship stems from research on the study of the senses in society and culture more broadly. Scholars have urged us to build our sensory awareness when conducting research and to adopt a more sensorial approach among both researchers and research participants. These approaches are most prominent in anthropology and ethnography but have extended to other disciplinary areas. Health has been a particularly rich area of application for sensory research. Visual research methods are the most well known approach to incorporating the senses into scholarship. Yet, there is a move toward using senses other than the visual, including sound, smell, taste, touch, balance, pain, and thermoception (sensing heat and cold). Sensory research methods offer a number of benefits for health research. They help generate meanings for research areas that are abstract or difficult to articulate and offer an expanded repertoire for meaning-making. However, sensory methods also pose challenges, notably methodological and ethical. Health researchers wishing to use sensory methods need to be aware of both the opportunities and challenges presented by this novel approach to research.
Although there are many possible ways of understanding menopause, it is the notion of menopause as hormone deficiency that currently dominates. How is it that this account remains prevalent rather than some alternative understanding of menopause? This question is explored through the employment of a framework informed by both actor network theory and symbolic interactionist studies. The author exploits the common ground shared by these two conceptual approaches to analyze how practices generate and reify particular kinds of knowledge about menopause. The analysis is situated within Australian menopause clinics and explores several key contemporary practices of these clinics to show how the particular understanding of menopause as hormone deficiency is generated and stabilized. The study stresses the knowledge/practice nexus and emphasizes that meanings are not given in advance but are generated through practices. In particular, the focus is on the interactions of the social and the material entities of menopause clinics and how through these interactions the understanding of menopause as hormone deficiency is produced.
Trust in research is important but not well understood. We examine the ways that researchers understand and practice trust in research. Using a qualitative research design, we interviewed 19 researchers, including eight researchers involved in Australian Indigenous research. The project design focused on sensitive research including research involving vulnerable participants and sensitive research topics. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. We found that researchers' understanding of trust integrates both the conceptual and concrete; researchers understand trust in terms of how it relates to other similar concepts and how they practice trust in research. This provides a sound basis to better understand trust in research, as well as identifying mechanisms to regain trust when it is lost in research.
Identity and decision-making are interrelated concepts, but the relationship between them is complex particularly when an unwell person’s ability to make decisions is compromised. In this article we discuss how moral self-definition (Nelson, 2001;Walker, 1987) can be used within a Listening Guide (LG) analysis to extend analysis of the temporal relationship between identity and decisions. In this project, the LG was used to analyze interviews exploring older people’s understanding of medical decision-making when the unwell person’s capacity is diminished. The second step of the LG drew attention to the participants’ expression of decision-making voices and health-related identities, but the iterative and temporal relationship between identity and decisions was less well illuminated. Therefore, we applied the theoretical framework of moral self-definition within the third listening. The focus of this article is on how moral self-definition can be integrated as a theoretical framework within the contrapuntal listening to extend the LG analysis.
Abstract Introduction The complex and contentious nature of alcohol and other drug (AOD) clinical work affords the likelihood of significant ethical dimensions. However, little attention has been paid to clinicians' perspectives of ethics in their practice within AOD settings. This potentially neglects an important aspect of AOD clinical work. Methods We used an insider empirical ethics methodology, where the first author (DS) concurrently worked as an AOD clinician in the research setting. Participants were 30 experienced AOD clinicians, working within a large specialist AOD service in Victoria, Australia. We used three qualitative data collection methods: moral conversation, involving semi‐structured interviews; moral participation, involving the first author reflecting on his own ethical practices; and participant‐observation, involving observation of clinical meetings. We used Applied Thematic Analysis to analyse the data. Results Although participants rarely used explicitly ethical language to describe their work, they described four ethical goals: helping clients to access AOD care and treatment; facilitating change in clients' lives; challenging stigma; and keeping people safe. We argue that these clinical goals should also be conceptualised as ethical goals. Discussion and Conclusions Ethics is an integral component of everyday AOD work. Our findings had some overlap with established ethical principles. Participants demonstrated expertise in engaging with ethical dimensions, without using ethical language. Given the limited attention paid to ethics in AOD clinical settings, increasing the focus on ethics in everyday clinical practice is an important contribution to future AOD clinical work. Its absence negates important aspects of care for clients.
Tensões éticas fazem parte da prática cotidiana da pesquisa, de todos os tipos. Como os pesquisadores lidam com problemas éticos que surgem na prática de suas pesquisas, e há estruturas conceituais nas quais eles podem se basear para auxiliá-los? Este artigo examina a relação entre reflexividade e ética em pesquisa. Ele se concentra no que constitui a prática ética de pesquisa em pesquisa qualitativa e em como os pesquisadores efetivam a prática ética em pesquisa. Como uma estrutura para pensar sobre essas questões, as autoras distinguem duas dimensões diferentes de ética em pesquisa, o que elas designam como ética procedimental e “ética na prática”. A relação entre elas e o impacto que cada uma tem na realização da pesquisa são examinados. O artigo baseia-se na noção de reflexividade como uma maneira útil de entender tanto a natureza da ética na pesquisa qualitativa quanto como a prática ética em pesquisa pode ser efetivada.
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