When the Researched Refused Confidentiality: Reflections from Fieldwork Experience in Ghana
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Academic Ethics
Abstract
Meeting appropriate ethical standards for research involving human participants, mean
ensuring confidentiality. It is assumed that the research participant will accept the safeguarding protocols necessary to ensure confidentiality. This assumption however oversimplifies the variation of motivations that goes into participants’ decisions to participate
in research. Drawing on reflections from my fieldwork experience in Ghana, I answer
the questions: Why do research participants reject confidentiality? What ethical position
can one take when the researcher and the researched have conflicting perspectives about
confidentiality? I contend that participants with personal stake refuse confidentiality when
they want to be acknowledged for their data. Rejecting confidentiality is however, embedded in the individual perspective, cultural, and political context of the study area.
The ethical concerns of such refusal can be ameliorated if confidentiality is nuanced to
include six categorically distinct but mutually non-exclusive stages: research-planning,
ongoing-information, writing-up, reality-after-research, differential-disseminations, and
no-confidentiality-clause. The paper further argues that whilst maintaining institutional allegiance in this matter is crucial, employing confidentiality should lie at the intersection of
participants’ motivation for taking part in the research, the socio-cultural-specific-context
of the study location and the nature of the topic being explored.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Confidentiality, Qualitative research methods, Ethical dilemma, Motivation for research participation, Ghana