Regulatory Ethics Versus Ethics of Truth:
Exploring Procedures and Methodological Outcomes of Accountability Systems in Fieldwork Research

Claudio Morrison, Devi Sacchetto

abstract

This article critically examines principles and procedures of research ethics and academic accountability relevant to fieldwork research employing materialist critiques of post- modern though. Academic systems of governance based on accountability have been questioned on ethical grounds. This study calls into question the theoretical assumptions of mainstream ethics seeking an alternative approach. First, it delineates a genealogy of critical methods following the emancipatory epistemologies of Bourdieu, Gramsci and Burawoy. Then, ethnographic research in post-soviet workplaces is used to investigate moral issues in fieldwork. The accountability failures of academics involved in Russia’s 1990s mass privatization make post-Soviet Russia a significant testing ground for the moral practice of ethnography. Confronting an unethical world, the researcher must resort to stratagems which, in retrospect, appear to violate ethics procedures. We ask whether an alternative approach can be identified without surrendering to mere instrumentalism. Our research identifies a morality that responds to the social context of research with participation and commitment. Research ethics inspired by Badiou’s ethics of truth recognize reflexivity, engagement, and emancipation as central to research’s moral integrity as they are to its scientific validity. An approach that can guide the researcher across the murky politics of fieldwork ultimately demands loyalty to emancipation struggles and those involved in it.

Keywords

Accountability, Ethics, Post-socialism, Qualitative research, Ethnography