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Erasure: A Challenge to Feminist and Queer Research

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The Palgrave Handbook of Ethics in Critical Research

Abstract

Anonymity and confidentiality feature prominently in research ethics guidelines. In this chapter we draw on examples from a research ethics application for a project involving women who had extricated themselves from relationships in which they had experienced intimate partner violence, and an ethnographic study of cross-dressing and drag, to illustrate the multiple ways in which identity masking can be put to work, both promoting and undermining what it means to do ethical research. We argue that the requirement for anonymity and confidentiality cannot be assessed without taking into account historicity and the sociopolitical contexts in which a study and its participants are located. The chapter concludes by giving consideration to the potential of a situated ethics approach and the implications for ethics review processes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this chapter ‘I’ indicates the voice of the first author. ‘Our’ and ‘we’ are used to indicate the voices of both authors and refer to our research partnership.

  2. 2.

    Ethics approval was obtained in 2008 from the Research Projects and Ethics Review Committee (RPERC), Psychology Department, Rhodes University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction, Department of Psychology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

    Jacqueline Marx & Catriona Ida Macleod

Authors
  1. Jacqueline Marx
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  2. Catriona Ida Macleod
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Correspondence to Jacqueline Marx .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction, Department of Psychology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

    Catriona Ida Macleod

  2. Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction, Department of Psychology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

    Jacqueline Marx

  3. Department of History, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa

    Phindezwa Mnyaka

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Gareth J. Treharne

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Marx, J., Macleod, C.I. (2018). Erasure: A Challenge to Feminist and Queer Research. In: Macleod, C., Marx, J., Mnyaka, P., Treharne, G. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Ethics in Critical Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74721-7_20

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