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Qual Sociol (2011) 34:401413
DOI 10.1007/s11133-011-9195-z
Kathleen M. Blee & Ashley Currier
Published online: 22 July 2011# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract Qualitative sociologists confront thorny ethical issues, many of which are beyond the scope of institutional review board procedures and protocols. This essay presents the broad themes of this special issue by reviewing major approaches to scholarly ethical practice, offering a set of orienting propositions, and introducing the contributions of and connections among the articles that follow.
Keywords Ethics . Feminist . Institutional review board (IRB) . Bioethics . Queer studies . Postcolonial
Introduction
For a study of ex-patient/survivor/consumer activism against psychiatric abuse in the United States, Linda Morrison (2005) spent considerable time crafting a project that would meet institutional review board (IRB) guidelines for ethical research. In the U.S. and several other countries, scholars working or studying in universities, hospitals, think tanks, and other institutional settings are required to have any research that involves human subjects approved in advance by IRBs to ensure that it complies with institutional and government-mandated guidelines for ethical research. Adhering to IRB guidelines was particularly challenging for Morrison, since people diagnosed with mental illness fall within the IRBs
We list our names in alphabetical order; we are equal coauthors of this introduction and equal coeditors of this issue.
K. M. Blee (*)
Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA e-mail: kblee@pitt.edu
A. Currier
Department of Sociology and Womens and Gender Studies, Texas A&M University, TAMU 4355, College Station, TX 77843-4355, USAe-mail: currier@tamu.edu
Ethics Beyond the IRB: An Introductory Essay
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definition of a vulnerable group with special requirements for consent and participation. She even recrafted her study design to focus exclusively on those activists who were also employed as advocates in the mental health system, as the IRB considered them to be less vulnerable than other activists. Once her study was approved and she was in the field, however, Morrison confronted a host of ethical issues that IRB protocols had never anticipated. Despite her precautions, she had to decide how to interact with people who went off their medications and were clearly in a vulnerable state, and how to balance her roles as both participant and observer in groups of...