The biographical method in the context of conducting qualitive research online – possibilities, limitations and ethical concerns
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26485/PS/2021/71.1/3Keywords:
biographical interviews, narrative interviews, COVID-19 pandemic, online interviews, qualitative research, ethicsAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and many months of lockdown have forced some social scientists to continue to do qualitative research remotely and conduct interviews using online communication platforms. However, the growing popularity of such a way of collecting empirical material causes not only technical difficulties but also raises yet another ethical concern. The aim of this article is to analyse the risks and benefits of conducting online narrative interviews, with particular emphasis on doing biographical interviews. The main question we discuss is: Is it advisable and ethical to continue conducting online biographical research considering the specificity of this method?
The source material which is the basis of this article consists of two parts: 1. the analysis of methodological literature – a review of approaches and standpoints regarding doing research remotely and a summary of the arguments for and against conducting narrative interviews via the Internet; 2. we also rely on the autoethnographic observations of the researchers who participated in our project and the results of the project team’s internal discussions after conducting a trial of three
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