Abstract
The tenor of value-judgement-free social research is that researchers should leave their own moral concepts at home – or, at the latest, hand them in at the cloakroom, so to speak. This does not mean, however, that the people they meet in the course of their research do the same – and so researchers are inevitably confronted with their moral concepts. What interests us in the context of this paper is not so much moral judgments as the object of research; it is rather the question of which moral norms of which persons and social groups researchers encounter in their work and how they deal with them in their research practice. Researchers are confronted with moral norms as scientists in the form of the current norms of their discipline, as citizens in the form of the current norms of their society, and in their encounters (through questioning and observation) with the researched and their normative ideas.
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Notes
- 1.
The series is based on the groundbreaking work of John E. Douglas (who serves as the model for Holden in the series) and Robert Ressler (on whom Tench is based, as well as FBI agent Jack Crawford from the Hannibal novels/movies), who in the late 1970s/early 1980s interviewed 36 incarcerated men who had killed multiple people to explore connections between their social backgrounds and the motives behind their actions. They were advised in this by Ann Wolbert Burgess, trauma researcher at Boston College (on whom Carr is based in the series). Ressler is credited with coining, or at least popularizing, the term ‘serial killer’ and, with Douglas and Burgess, was instrumental in the development of psychological ‘profiling’. Their work resulted in a ‘Crime Classification Manual’ (Douglas et al. 1992; cf. Ressler et al. 1988).
- 2.
In the German dub Carr refers directly to Holdens truffles by saying: “We don’t get the truffles by digging in the dirt with them, we get them by interviewing and doing background research” (own translation).
- 3.
In approaches that are explicitly normative themselves, researchers are more likely to bring (their) morals to the table. Whether this leads to better science depends on what one thinks science should strive for.
- 4.
This also applies to many ethnographic procedures, which, typically, always problematize ‘going native’, i.e. going too close to the field and object of study (cf. Best 2012: 128; Brewer 2000: 60; Bryman 2016: 439; Jong 2013: 169), but rarely criticize too great a distance from the object (which, however, can just as plausibly lead to ‘bad’ research). This emphasis on a necessary distancing can be found prominently in the formula of “alienating one’s own culture” (Hirschauer and Amann 1997; translated).
- 5.
- 6.
Observational participation differs from participant observation (1) with regard to the intention: it is about the production of observation data and experience data, (2) with regard to the technique: participation has – in case of decision – priority over observation, (3) with regard to the data quality: it is intended to obtain an existential inner view through subjective experience instead of a distanced outer view, and (4.) with regard to data quality: the aim is to obtain an existential internal view through subjective experience, instead of a distanced external view, and 4. finally, with regard to the problem of evaluation: the interpretation of subjective experience data requires – if one wants to avoid psychologizing or even moralizing ‘lyricism of concern’ – an analysis with recourse to techniques of eidetic description and typological reflection.
- 7.
Through their own engagement in the field (including conversations, observations and experiences), researchers sometimes learn to understand why others do not report what is happening, or why they report it differently, e.g. because they are not seen as trustworthy or because they do not have the knowledge that the ‘natives’ believe is necessary to understand what they can observe.
- 8.
Arnulf Deppermann, among others, has pointed out that there is actually “a lack of research on the actual course of interaction in social science interviews” (Deppermann 2013: 27; translated). He is even more explicit in the following: “Recommendations for conducting interviews, for the construction of questions and interview guidelines, as well as corresponding training courses are not substantiated by empirical studies – how which form of question has an effect, which problems arise in the situated implementation of a question agenda, how and with which consequences interviewers give feedback in which form and at which points, has so far been discussed almost exclusively on an intuitive basis and by recourse to field anecdotes and practitioners’ knowledge”. (ibid.: 28, translated). Decisions for one or another form of questioning and for a certain appearance are therefore to a certain extent also ‘questions of faith’.
- 9.
The works of Kathleen Blee (2000) and Simi and Futrell (2010) are a good example of this, as both deal with radical right-wing groups from an ethnographic perspective. While Blee has no sympathy for her interviewees and, out of sincerity, also hints at them to hold contrary opinions (or strives for a neutral stance; cf. Blee 2000: 99), Simi, contrary to his personal attitude, behaves much more affirmatively (cf. Simi and Futrell 2010: 129), e.g. by laughing at racist jokes, agreeing with statements on the racial genocide of whites and presenting himself in principle as recruitable ‘for the cause’.
- 10.
Weiss writes that the woman refrained from this revenge idea during a later interview and that if she had not done so, he would have intervened. However, he also reports that he did not ask people with HIV infections who told him about sharing their syringe equipment (for injecting intoxicants) with other people to refrain from doing so.
- 11.
Ferrell represents a perspective of radical engagement in and deep ‘immersion’ in the field (with everything that goes with it), also explicitly in the context of illegalized acts. In his approach of ‘criminological Verstehen’, he is thus close to the approach of ‘radicalized’ lifeworld-analytical ethnography that we both protect in this respect.
- 12.
Further differences lie in how the researched are involved in the presentation of results and whether/how far this problematic knowledge is disclosed at all.
- 13.
With regard to the relationship of the researcher to science, there is also the fact that research work may well entail – serious – professional reputation problems. Disapproval due to divergent views of science is neither unlikely nor without consequences. In any case, it is by no means self-evident that such work does not ruin scientific careers (cf. Ferrell and Hamm 1998a, b: 8). It is therefor ‘humanly’ understandable that, in addition to external scientific censorship, it is not uncommon for self-censorship as well.
- 14.
If and insofar as a behaviour considered problematic from any point of view seems to be typical or significant for what is the subject of one’s own research, and if researchers are concerned with the comprehensive, meaningful description of the internal perspective of the researched, they must, according to our attitude, follow this (supposedly) field-typical behaviour – and this sometimes means that they not only participate, but that they must (want to) ‘get their hands dirty’ in participating in a way that is by no means always predictable. This is by no means an endorsement of any kind of adventurism, but ‘merely’ of the willingness to take on a role as a participant that is adequate and appropriate to the respective ‘circumstances’.
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Eisewicht, P., Hitzler, R. (2023). On This Side of the Principle Solutions. Moral Responsibility of Social Science Researchers in the Context of Scientific Understanding, Field Conditions and Societal Involvement. In: Joller, S., Stanisavljević, M. (eds) Moral Collectives. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40147-4_7
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