Paying for interviews? Negotiating ethics, power and expectation

Abstract

The ethical dilemma of payment or compensation for participation in research remains a core concern for many scholars. Field class teaching is not exempt from these dilemmas and can provide subtly different challenges than those faced by the lone researcher, not least for work within the global South. Through reflections on two field class visits to Kenya, this paper explores issues of reciprocity, communication, trust, power and precedent in the negotiation of payment for participation. Critical reflections identify a number of weaknesses in the decisions made during field classes that are used to highlight the need to recognise and negotiate the tensions between collective and individual ethical negotiations within the context of conducting ethical research within a field class context.