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Are we all Unethical?

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The Affective Life of a Controversial Paper and the Formalization of (Ethnographic) Research Ethics



Text by Franz Templin (Humboldt-Universität Berlin)

Art by Moxi Ochsenbauer



This essay discusses the discourse on a controversial paper titled “I am not alone – we are all alone: Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan” which was published in the journal Qualitative Research in 2022. Commentators on Twitter (which has since been renamed to “X”) debated the validity of the proposed method and, above all, the ethics of the underlying research. The role of formalized review processes in determining ethical conduct in research and publishing emerged as a prominent theme in this heated online debate. Ethics reviews and ethics in practice are, however, not synonymous—especially in the case of ethnographic research in psychological anthropology and beyond. The formalization of research ethics may, in fact, detract from vital reflections on the complex ethical challenges of ethnography and impede research on sensitive issues, such as mental health.



Introduction


On August 10, 2022, while scrolling through my Twitter (now “X”) feed, which—for the sake of my own mental well-being—is almost exclusively comprised of accounts sharing content related to anthropology and my other academic interests, a tweet attracted my attention. It referred to ‘that paper’ in the journal Qualitative Research and provided an articulate critique of some aspects of an unspecified research article. Since I had no knowledge of the relevant context, I eventually scrolled on. A day later, I came to realize that this initial tweet was just one of many—a scandal had fully erupted within the realm of academic Twitter. Commentators condemned the article, deemed it unethical and called it a threat to the reputation of research on sexuality and the method of ethnography. A recurring question was how the paper had passed the peer review process without it being flagged for ethical concerns or how this research could have been approved by an institutional ethics committee.

Using this controversy as a starting point, in this essay I will discuss if the ethicality of research can be determined by formalized review processes and what a case such as ‘that paper’ may teach us about the ethics of ethnographic research and writing in psychological anthropology and beyond.



The Affective Life of a Controversial Paper


The paper in question is titled “I am not alone – we are all alone: Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan” and was originally published online in April 2022. The author, Karl Andersson, holds a master’s degree in visual and media anthropology and at the time of publication was a PhD student at the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at Manchester University. His research is concerned with questions of desire and identity among fans of shota in Japan. “Shota, or shotacon, is a niche genre of Japanese manga focusing on homoerotic depictions of young boys, often (but not necessarily) in sexually explicit situations with either other young boys or older men” (Brienza 2022). While researching this genre of manga and its consumers and producers might evoke some level of discomfort, it will most likely not raise ethical concerns in and of itself. What provoked such objections, however, was Andersson’s approach of “reading the works the way they were intended to be read: while masturbating” (Andersson 2022, 6). This was supposed to facilitate an embodied understanding of the subject that qualitative interviews and other methods could purportedly not provide.













Figure 1: A tweet by Helen Dale jokingly referencing Andersson’s paper. https://twitter.com/_HelenDale/status/1556543325510975490

A tweet by Helen Dale from 8 August 2022 presumably started the public debate on the publication that had previously gone largely unnoticed. It was a subsequent retweet by sociologist Alice Sullivan that eventually set the scandal in motion as it was shared widely on Twitter and beyond (Brienza 2022). The outrage it produced can in some part be attributed to the fact that, as so-called gender-critical feminists,[1] Dale and Sullivan have close ties to reactionary political figures and movements. The story was soon picked up by British Conservative politicians and tabloids alike and was frequently accompanied by attempts to discredit academic research on sexuality or the humanities and social sciences more broadly.







Figure 2: A tweet by British Conservative MP Neil O’Brien from August 10, 2022, commenting on the affair. https://twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1557236449786957824


Responding to the public backlash, Qualitative Research announced an investigation of the publication on August 10. Some promptly criticized the journal for not removing the article and pointed out that the paper, which was open access, has been generating traffic as few others had before. It had garnered almost 50,000 views and downloads before eventually being removed on August 13. Following the conclusion of the investigation it was formally retracted on August 22.

As Brienza (2022) points out, the article in question is in fact a ‘Note’—a format that is comparatively short and allows for more experimental ways of writing and methodological reflection, according to the publishing journal. While the paper most commonly raised moral concerns, its methodology and overall quality has nevertheless been criticized as well. Among those critiques were accusations of armchair anthropology and appropriation.










Figure 3: A tweet by Justin A. Gutzwa critiquing Andersson’s paper. https://twitter.com/therealjgutz/status/1557182807234883586


At the very start of his paper, Andersson (2022, 2) jokingly mentions how he came to the realization that his body was equipped with a “research tool” that could help him comprehend how his research participants experienced their engagement with shota material. In what follows, he essentially claims to better understand Japanese people’s practices by masturbating to material depicting fictional underage boys.










Figure 4: A tweet by Justin A. Gutzwa critiquing Andersson’s paper. https://twitter.com/therealjgutz/status/1557182808312778753


In an attempt to portray his masturbation sessions as a research method he likens his approach to an experiment following strict rules. Interestingly, Andersson does not frame this as autoethnography but instead as a form of participant observation. This might have been a conscious maneuver, anticipating criticism relating to autoethnographic virtues such as reflexivity (Lapadat 2017, 591). He also barely situates himself in the study and conceals his background, personal perspectives, and political aims. By invoking Foucault, he evades any “confession” (Andersson 2022, 3) of his own desires concerning the discussed material. This strategic move allows him to omit his own deep engagements with—and creation of—highly controversial media. 

In the social media discourse around the paper, however, the turbulent history of the author would soon resurface. From 2006 to 2010 he published the zine Destroyer, which “featured sexually suggestive shots of boys as young as 13 in various states of undress” (Meter 2012). This was followed by another project, the website Breaking Boy News, “which is essentially made up of violent, sexual headlines about young boys, illustrated with pictures of pre-pubescent boys in sexualised poses, half-naked and occasionally not wearing any pants” (Cross 2012). Andersson’s loose grip on ethics comes to light in statements made in interviews concerning his controversial work. In an article by Out Magazine he is quoted as saying “Destroyer was about making the models objects, [...] I didn't want to know what they were thinking” (Meter 2012). While those projects and statements precede his more current academic endeavors, they are nevertheless revealing and hint at particular inclinations and convictions.

Many commentators asked how the research the article was based on could have passed an ethics review. As a matter of fact, it did not (The University of Manchester 2022). The paper had originally been written for a class during Andersson’s master’s degree and as such was not subject to a review process. The question is worth considering, however: Could formalized ethics procedures prevent this kind of misconduct and the publication of similar research papers?



The Formalization of Research Ethics


The regulation of research ethics in the form of institutional review boards (IRBs) or research ethics committees (RECs) originated in medical research and aims at protecting human research subjects. Central concerns are ensuring confidentiality and making research participants aware of potential harms and benefits associated with the study—so that they can give their informed consent or opt out. Especially in the anglophone world, mandatory ethics reviews have subsequently become common for all research involving human subjects (Dilger 2017, 195). Many anthropologists and ethnographers have opposed this kind of ethics regulation as it follows the logics developed for clinical trials, which are drastically different from ethnographic fieldwork.


Because of their particular origin, these kinds of ethics reviews focus on “the assessment of research approaches that work with clearly outlined hypotheses, methods and research samples, and that tend to have as goal the ‘closure’ of a research topic” (Dilger 2017, 196). IRBs or RECs commonly require an outline of research design and methodology, including specifications on informed consent procedures and sometimes even minutiae like interview schedules (Allbutt and Masters 2010, 211). This is at odds with the approach of ethnography that requires flexibility and the ability to adapt research design and methodology to the demands of the field and unpredictable findings or occurrences. Members of review boards rarely have knowledge of these particularities of qualitative and ethnographic methods. Hammersley (2009, 214) argues that a lack of expertise on the methodology and context of a research project undermines claims of authority on ethics. Given the various approaches to determining ethical conduct there can, moreover, never be a definitive consensus on any ethical problem.









Figure 5: A tweet by Richard Ashcroft commenting on the state of research ethics procedures. https://twitter.com/ashcroftethics/status/1557642513879646214


Other critics identify this approach as “procedural ethics” (Huber and Imeri 2021, 5) and a “bureaucratization” (Allbutt and Masters 2010, 210) of research ethics. Some also argue that formalized ethics reviews are more concerned with protecting institutions and their reputation than with ethical conduct (Russell and Barley 2020, 9; Lapadat 2017, 595). What becomes apparent, however, is that ethics regulation is different from ethics in practice.



The Ethics of Ethnography


The kind of questions anthropologists are pondering when considering matters of research ethics are usually not the ones an IRB or REC is likely qualified or even set up to evaluate. Ethical concerns within ethnographic research are highly dependent on the research context, including geographic location, the subject studied, the different people and institutions involved, and the approach to how knowledge is generated about whom.


Accordingly, the ethics of ethnography are interrelated with the methods of fieldwork, the relationships to research participants, as well as questions of epistemology and representation.



Fieldwork and Consent


Ethnographic research practices vary drastically from those in clinical or laboratory setting common in medical and psychological studies. Fieldworkers usually do not have a comparable level of control over research situations and research participants are not the passive subjects that the clinical research paradigm assumes them to be (Bell 2014, 518). While ethnographers  can in some cases inflict harm (Hammersley 2020, 474-450), research participants are generally not subjected to the same kind of risk that medical trials may entail. Ethnographic research commonly happens in natural settings—such as the living and working environments of research participants—and spans multiple months or even years. In consequence, there is a level of unpredictability to fieldwork that limits standardization and requires flexibility on the part of the researcher. “Ethical decisions need thus to be made in response to the research process itself rather than as a set of principles externally established in advance” (Russell and Barley 2020, 9).


Informed consent is a central instrument of formalized ethics reviews (Dilger 2017, 193). For anthropologists and ethnographers, however, consent is an ongoing process and not a fixed event (Allbutt and Masters 2010, 211; Huber and Imeri 2021, 5). Building rapport and mutual trust is a key component of most ethnographic research and consent is thus understood as a prerequisite of fieldwork—spare the few and often controversial instances of covert research. Consent is negotiated and renegotiated, often in “a transcultural process of communication” (Sleeboom-Faulkner et al. 2017, 73).


Certain subjects require a level of sensitivity that standardized informed consent procedures actively undermine. Attempts at establishing mutual trust and allowing for research participants to self-determinately open up about their experiences and views can be jeopardized by confronting them with the full scope of a research project from the onset. This can be the case if the subject is morally charged or associated with stigma, as Dilger (2017, 202) has demonstrated for his research on HIV/AIDS in rural Tanzania. Presenting specific details of a research project to informants, like criteria for inclusion in the study, can be perceived by research participants as reducing them to a certain aspect of themselves—a (mental) health condition for instance. Within the framework of regulatory ethics, however, such strategic nondisclosure of some details may be deemed unethical (Bell 2014, 517). If gaining access—and by extension consent—relies upon full disclosure of all aspects of a project from the onset, certain issues will become almost impossible to research. This holds especially true for socially sensitive subjects, such as matters pertaining to mental health or sexuality.


When the pivotal questions of ethics reviews are limited to informed consent, confidentiality, and data protection, a questionable conflation of legal and ethical aspects of research seems to be occurring. Ethics in social research far exceeds questions of legality and data protection, as enshrined in the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2016, for instance.



Representation and Epistemology


For anthropologists, ethnography is not only a research method, but also a mode of writing. Protecting research participants’ privacy requires careful and complex considerations about what can be included in a publication, since the anonymization of ethnographic material can be fairly challenging. Ethical considerations thus go beyond the stages of fieldwork and extends to the act of writing and questions of representation.[2] As far as regulatory ethics are concerned, however, what research participants need to consent to is the generation, processing, and scientific use of data that relates to themselves—not how they will be represented. Kristen Bell (2014, 516) observes:


“Indeed, prevailing research ethics frameworks remain largely silent on the ethics of representation, an absence that speaks to their underlying positivism, whereby the act of writing is generally understood to present a transparent ‘writing up’ of study results and ethical concerns tend to array around issues like data fabrication.”

 

Debates about knowledge production and epistemology emerging from the engagement with postcolonial theory and questions of representation facilitated profound reflections on the ethical implications and responsibilities of anthropological research and writing while approaches like applied, public, and engaged anthropology reframed the role and relationality of the ethnographer (Dilger 2017, 197). Such considerations of questions of representation and positionality were notably absent in the article discussed above.















Figure 6: A tweet by Erica Kanesaka commenting on Andersson’s paper. https://twitter.com/EricaKanesaka/status/1557444623081119744


Broadly speaking, however, anthropology has embraced a mode of research that allows for integrating subjectivity, emotional involvement, or activist engagement into the research process and ethical reflexivity. Whereas most research strives for objectivity and seeks to answer a specific question, prove or disprove a hypothesis, ethnography’s openness frequently requires researchers to shift focus, amend their questions, and reflect on their positionality. Anthropologists are particularly careful in prioritizing one position over the other when seemingly contradictory knowledge claims arise. The aim of research on spirit possession, for instance, would not be to show if such a phenomenon actually exists (or rather should be regarded as a form of superstition or mental illness), but to understand its social function, meaning, and context. Dilger (2017, 203) argues that questions of what constitutes relevant knowledge about a subject and how researchers position themselves in relation to competing knowledge claims may bring forth ethical problems not shared by other disciplinary approaches.


Another aspect related to epistemology is the recognition that ethnographic knowledge is neither predetermined nor can it be exclusively owned, as is assumed in ethics reviews (Russell and Barley 2020, 6). Ethnographic knowledge is commonly understood as co-constructed, that is, as a result of shared knowledge, conversations, and relations between researchers and research participants. In contrast, the formalization of ethics procedures reinforces a positivist research paradigm in which roles and modes of knowledge production are clearly defined. Within this bureaucratized framework, ethics reviews are at risk of being reduced to a kind of “box-ticking procedure” (Unger, Dilger, and Schönhuth 2016, 15).



The Pitfalls of Formalized Ethics


Formalized review processes are rarely concerned with the distinctive ethical problems that might be part of the complex relations and contexts of ethnographic research. The checkbox approach to ethics might instead provide a wrong sense of security about the ethicality of research and may thus discourage such vital reflections—especially in young researchers (Sleeboom-Faulkner et al. 2017, 73). The time-consuming nature of ethics reviews may facilitate a narrow focus on the formalities of the process and consequently claim scarce resources that could have been spent on contemplations of the research process and its ethical implications.











Figure 7: A tweet by Kim Weeden about Institutional Review Boards and research ethics.


In their ethnographic study of different mental healthcare sites, Allbutt and Masters (2010) observed that rigid ethics regulation can impede or delay the process of gaining access to field sites and reinforce the role of staff as gatekeepers. As a result, the participation of healthcare service users was severely restricted in some sites. Protocols required by ethics committees “complicate the extent to which researchers can respond to shifting conditions. There is game-playing involved in setting out projected sample sizes and expected outputs in funding proposals” (Allbutt and Masters 2010, 214). When ethical regulation becomes a form of auditing, researchers are incentivized to adopt strategies they deem likely to succeed when applying for ethics approval (Hammersley 2009, 216) and may avoid addressing anticipated—yet complex—challenges and concerns.


Ethics regulations may also have a detrimental effect on “research employing innovative methods or dealing with ‘difficult’ topics, groups or settings” (Hammersley 2009, 219) as researchers feel discouraged by the prospect of their projects having slim chances of passing ethical approval—or the process being perceived as too troublesome. This can have far-reaching consequences for research on subjects related to sexuality, illegalized activities, or vulnerable groups, such as patients in mental healthcare facilities.


Taking these potential ramifications and the incompatibilities with ethnographic methods into account, there seem to be ample grounds for reconsidering the current formalization of research ethics in the shape of IRBs or RECs. One approach addressing these problems proposes ethics reviews to be based on disciplinary conventions by locating them on the departmental level (Dilger 2017, 206; Sleeboom-Faulkner et al. 2017, 76). Additionally, they should not be mandatory for all research, but an option researchers can make use of when they need ethics approval for grants or publications—or deem it valuable for their project. Within such a framework, the complex ethical questions and challenges of ethnographic research could be appropriately addressed and deliberated with peers who can relate to the corresponding methodological and epistemological peculiarities.



Conclusion


Given the arguments against mandatory ethics reviews, how else could the case of the controversial paper have been avoided? One seemingly obvious answer would be the peer review of the paper. But even when ignoring the ramifications of the current peer-review crisis (Flaherty 2022), this process still mostly relies on the personal convictions of the reviewers and how benevolent they are in their assessment. In her discussion of the ‘that paper’ affair, sociologist Casey Brienza (2022) for instance, did not find sufficient grounds for outright rejecting the article—a point of view that can undoubtedly be challenged when considering its methodological and ethical shortcomings. More importantly, she argues that the reasons given for the article’s retraction, mainly the purported potential for causing harm, are not practically verifiable (Brienza 2022, 139-142). The actual impact of an ethically disputable publication will, in most cases, indeed be hard to determine and the argument can certainly be made that the retraction of the article primarily served to evade further reputational harm to the journal.


On a larger scale, however, the question may be raised if such strategic decisions are necessary to protect the field of qualitative research on sexuality and other sensitive issues. Many commentators argued that this controversy may inflict further harm on the perception of qualitative research, which is already being challenged by reactionary forces and proponents of a strictly positivist research paradigm. In times of increasing budget cuts on research funding that disproportionally affect the social sciences and humanities, scandals like this provide easy ammunition for adversaries of a perceived progressive-leaning academia. This holds especially true for the vitally important research on subjects like gender and sexuality, which has been under frequent attack by right-wing forces and so-called gender-critical feminists alike.


Is the reputational harm resulting from a singular—yet highly publicized—case worth risking the pitfalls of stricter ethics regulation? Would the prevention of questionable conduct by a select few researchers justify possibly jeopardizing methodological innovation and research in fields deemed immoral or too complicated to gain ethical clearance? The solution for such individual missteps will most probably not be found in the formalization of ethics reviews on an institutional level. As pointed out above, presenting a research project to an ethics committee in a way that is more likely to gain approval is a strategy that is already far from uncommon. Taking advantage of this system could thus pave the way for otherwise questionable research to be labelled as ethically sound. Researchers like Andersson, who exhibit a history of reveling in controversy and a dubious relation to ethics, will presumably still find their way through formalized review processes in many cases.


When research ethics is reduced to formally correct conduct, like the documentation of informed consent procedures, reflection on the complex ethical challenges of research and writing is at risk of being neglected. Attention to questions of representation, epistemology, and the positionality of the researcher—which was mostly absent in the controversial paper—are crucial for addressing the ethical challenges of ethnographic research. This instance showcases the need “to train and strengthen young researchers’ ethical judgement already during their studies” (Huber and Imeri 2021, 17), rather than establishing formalized review processes. Ethics education should consequently be a more prominent part of teaching and fieldwork training (Sleeboom-Faulkner et al. 2017, 76), especially in subfields like psychological anthropology that may entail research with more vulnerable participants, such as children and youth, or patients with mental health concerns.



Notes


[1] A more common term for self-proclaimed gender-critical feminists is TERF, which stands for trans exclusionary radical feminist. They are commonly characterized by their rejection of constructivist theories of sex/gender and queer theory, their anti-trans rhetoric and activism, and increasingly close ties to conservative and even right-wing political figures and movements.


[2] One might argue that the ethics of any kind of research extend far beyond the process of producing data. How research findings are (mis)represented and contextualized in publications concerns all disciplines working with data (D'Ignazio and Klein 2020, 159–68). Considering potential consequences of representation and data visualization, especially when they affect marginalized communities, may therefore be regarded as a cornerstone of ethical considerations in academic research and writing.



References

Allbutt, Helen, and Hugh Masters. 2010. “Ethnography and the Ethics of Undertaking Research in Different Mental Healthcare Settings.” Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 17 (3): 210–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2009.01493.x.


Andersson, Karl. 2022. “I Am Not Alone – We Are All Alone: Using Masturbation as an Ethnographic Method in Research on Shota Subculture in Japan.” (Retracted on August 22, 2022). Qualitative Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941221096600.


Bell, Kirsten. 2014. “Resisting Commensurability: Against Informed Consent as an Anthropological Virtue.” American Anthropologist 116 (3): 511-522. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12122.


Brienza, Casey. 2022. “The Masturbation Article Affair: Japanese Manga, Scholarly Publishing, and the Twenty-First Century Politics of Censorship.” Publishing Research Quarterly 39: 132-146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-022-09916-y.


Cross, Chloe. 2012. “I Publish a Magazine Full of Half-Naked Little Boys: An Interview with the Unrepentant Editor of Breaking Boy News.” VICE, November 28, 2012. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xdpb7k/breaking-boy-news.


D'Ignazio, Catherine, and Lauren F. Klein. 2020. Data Feminism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.


Dilger, Hansjörg. 2017. “Ethics, Epistemology, and Ethnography: The Need for an Anthropological Debate on Ethical Review Processes in Germany.” Sociologus 67 (2): 191–208. https://doi.org/10.3790/soc.67.2.191.


Flaherty, Colleen. 2022. “The Peer-Review Crisis.” Inside Higher Ed, June 13, 2022. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/13/peer-review-crisis-creates-problems-journals-and-scholars.


Hammersley, Martyn. 2009. “Against the Ethicists: On the Evils of Ethical Regulation.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 12 (3): 211–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645570802170288.


Hammersley, Martyn. 2020. “Ethics of Ethnography.” In Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity, edited by Ron Iphofen, 445–57. Cham: Springer.


Huber, Elisabeth, and Sabine Imeri. 2021. “Informed Consent in Ethnographic Research: A Common Practice Facing New Challenges (Preprint)”. Qualiservice Working Papers 4-2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.26092/elib/1070.


Lapadat, Judith C. 2017. “Ethics in Autoethnography and Collaborative Autoethnography.” Qualitative Inquiry 23 (8): 589–603. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417704462.


Meter, William van. 2012. “Eternal Youth: 'Destroyer,' the Controversial Zine That Objectified Teen Idols.” Out Magazine, January 11, 2012. https://www.out.com/entertainment/2012/01/09/destroyer-sweden-zine-teenage-boy.


Russell, Lisa, and Ruth Barley. 2020. “Ethnography, Ethics and Ownership of Data.” Ethnography 21 (1): 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138119859386.


Sleeboom-Faulkner, Margaret, Bob Simpson, Elena Burgos-Martinez, and James McMurray. 2017. “The Formalization of Social-Science Research Ethics.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (1): 71–79. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau7.1.010.


The University of Manchester. 2022. “Statement on Investigation into Work of PhD Student.” News release. August 22, 2022. https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/statement-on-investigation-into-work-of-phd-student/.


Unger, Hella von, Hansjörg Dilger, and Michael Schönhuth. 2016. “Ethics Reviews in the Social and Cultural Sciences? A Sociological and Anthropological Contribution to the Debate.” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 17 (3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-17.3.2719.



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