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Toward an Ecological Approach to Ethics in Visual Research Methods with Children

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Abstract

This conceptual paper presents an approach to conducting visual research with children. It locates research praxis within an ecological framework where researchers operate within spheres of moral and emotional engagement through play. It critiques research activities that consider ethics as a system to manage the behavioral conduct of researchers, sometimes resulting in a disconnect between those doing research and those being researched, and proposes instead an ecological form of collaborative ethical enquiry. Targeted at research practitioners, the text is written from the perspective of the first author’s research with children using film. It charts various research activities that were located at a small off-grid school in Cornwall, UK, and discusses the ethical dilemmas encountered and the measures used to overcome them.

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Waters, P., Waite, S. (2016). Toward an Ecological Approach to Ethics in Visual Research Methods with Children. In: Warr, D., Guillemin, M., Cox, S., Waycott, J. (eds) Ethics and Visual Research Methods. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54305-9_9

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