Harm, Change and Unpredictability: 
The Ethics of Interviews in Conflict Research
2020, Qualitative Research [pdf] (with Denisa Kostovicova)

Conceiving of interviews as relationships of knowledge-creation involving a researcher and a research participant, we engage with the ethical implications of the unpredictabilities of this relationship when conducting research in conflict and post-conflict contexts. Through a conservative application of the precautionary principle that prohibits change of all involved in the research process, presuming change (always) implies harm, scholars to date have overlooked the ethical challenges that stem from the unpredictability of the interview method. In turn, this perspective has limited our ability to capture and mitigate possible forms of harm, undermining the legitimacy and appropriateness of existing ethical guidelines. We argue for a deliberative and iterative approach to understandings of harm and harm thresholds in interview research. 

​Beyond the Field: Ethics After Fieldwork in Politically Dynamic Contexts 
2019, Perspectives on Politics [pdf]

​This article considers questions of ethics that arise beyond the field given that political scientists often work in dynamic contexts. I consider the issues of beyond the field in terms of engaging with participants, publishing and returning to the field.
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Cited by:

• de la Guardia, F. H., & Sturdy, J. (2019). Best Practices for Transparent, Reproducible, and Ethical Research. Inter-American Development Bank.
• Sturdy, J. (2019) Working toward a Common Rule for Transparent, Reproducible, and Ethical Research. Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences.