Exploring the ethical imagination: conversation as practice versus committee as gatekeeper.

Abstract

This conversation (from which some excerpts are reproduced below) was part of the preparatory work for my (Sabi) doctorate in education in which I focus on ethical decision-making in qualitative research in health care settings. Les and I hope that readers who share our concerns about how qualitative studies are reviewed may contribute to this dialogue so that, as a community of researchers, we can start to think and speak differently about ethics and ethical decision-making in qualitative research. Thinking and speaking differently, we hope, may bring about changes in the review processes to make them more congruent with the values of our work and reflect more faithfully the tensions and dilemmas we, and our students, face in our practice.