Ethics as a dialogical exercise in qualitative research

Abstract

The article discusses the relevance of considering ethics as a dialogical exercise in the field of qualitative research, considering that encounters and relationships with other subjects, both individual and collective, challenge researchers in different ways. In this methodological approach, researching means becoming part of a field of encounters, relationships, and processes of subjectivation, arising from the tension between subjects, their subjectivities, and alterities. The reflections address some ethical issues that emerged in encounters and relationships during the course of an ethnographic research, whose objective was to analyze the effects of cultural transformation regarding madness in the production of subjectivities of users of mental health services. The epistemological status granted to the knowledge produced by these subjects in their social experiences is highlighted, as well as the issues involving anonymity, consent, and the stage of returning the research results. Finally, it argues for the necessary articulation between the norms and ethical principles established within the scientific and professional spheres and the practice of a dialogical and negotiated ethics in the context of the encounters and relationships inherent in qualitative research.