Ethical complexities associated with research involving vulnerable and marginalised population groups are well recognised, while practical solutions to these challenges are somewhat less well described. In this paper we focus on strategies for addressing interrelated practical, methodological and ethical issues which may arise during research with refugeebackground participants considered vulnerable. The paper draws on a study exploring the impact of social networks and supports on the resettlement experiences of newly-arrived migrant youth of refugee background in Australia. Three key sets of issues are discussed: developing research processes that maximise the benefits of involvement for participants while reducing potential harms; enhancing capacities for participants to give informed consent; and adapting research methods to heighten their relevance to circumstances of participants' lives and enhance their engagement in the research. We argue that promoting ethical practice and methodological validity are mutually reinforcing objectives and illustrate how processes of ethical reflexivity were applied to resolve methodological challenges, promote autonomy and capacity of research participants and enhance the potential for outcomes to be rigorous and useful.

Neighbourhoods are vulnerable to being stigmatized with implications for residents’ social networks, experiences of social connectedness, and opportunities for developing or accessing social capital. Goffman defined stigma as a discrediting attribute that impairs social acceptability. Poverty can be considered a discrediting attribute and stigma is experienced through negative labelling and stereotyping of the poor. Using qualitative data collected through interviews and participant observation in two impoverished suburbs in Victoria, Australia, this article explores experiences of neighbourhood, social networks and stigma as they are perceived by residents and people working in the neighbourhood. There was evidence of people being involved in supportive local bonding networks but few people were linked in bridging networks that extended outside the neighbourhood. Bridging networks are considered to be most effective for accessing valuable forms of social capital. The article considers social contexts for residents’ networks for their potential to generate social capital. Contemporary contexts for the stigmatization of poverty and possibilities for ‘destigmatizing’ social groups and neighbourhoods are discussed.

Focus groups are a useful method for sociological research because the sociable interaction that is generated can yield rich insight into people’s life worlds. This is because the nature of the talk that is generated in focus groups is a mixture of personal beliefs and available collective narratives that are further flavored by the local circumstances of participants’ lives. The interactions between participantsin focus group discussions characteristically comprise layers of talk and present researchers with complex analytical tasks. In addition to what participants say about themselves, analysis and interpretation of focus group data must pay attention to the content and form of interaction between participants. This article discusses and illustrates how sociable interactions from focus groups were analyzed for insights into classed contexts for romantic relationships.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 purposively selected female sex workers who were perceived to be vulnerable to risks associated with their lifestyle and occupation. Brothel workers were found to be considerably less exposed to risk than the women working on the streets. Client resistance was the major obstacle to women maintaining safe sex practices. Physical threats and coercion from clients, the absence of legal protection for street workers, the workers' extreme social isolation and lack of community support added to the difficulties experienced by women in their attempts to insist on condoms for all sex services. Youth, homelessness and heavy drug use had contributed to women being at times even more vulnerable because they had less capacity to manage situations of potential violence or STD risk. Whether through sex work or in their private relationships, HIV remains a risk for some of these women. This study highlights the dangers associated with illegal sex work. While decriminalization of prostitution would reduce some of the dangers to which women were exposed and increase women's capacity to insist on safe sex practices, it is also important for community education programmes to address men's failure to accept responsibility for condom use when seeking the services of sex workers.

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Female sex workers in Western societies report high rates of condom use with clients. However, their continuing low rates of condom use with private partners place some sex workers at increased risk of STDs and HIV. While researchers have focused on the health risks for female sex workers in their private relationships, from the point of view of the women involved, these relationships are a site of more complex struggles. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study of female sex workers and examines the difficulties associated with sustaining a private relationship while engaging in sex work. Sex work practices, in so far as they parody the features of love-making, can profoundly disrupt the special characteristics of intimate sexual relationships. Any intervention designed to promote condom use in the private relationships of female sex workers must engage with the complexity of meanings that are attached to sex work, love and intimacy by these women.

In this article, the author reflects on her involvement in qualitative health among disadvantaged and disenfranchised groups whose life experiences are, for the most part, very different from her own. Despite the differences, she is persuaded that it is possible to have an empathetic understanding of other people's experiences through research. Recalling experiences from her own research encounters, she shows the ways in which these encounters as embodied and situated interactions generate a powerful methodological potential for gaining insight into other people's lives. She suggests strategies for preserving the layers of context and meaning that can otherwise be lost when research encounters are transformed into research data. Furthermore, the methodological power of qualitative research can mean that research encounters are intense and emotional experiences for researchers. Therefore, she offers some strategies for managing the emotional potency of some of the more distressing life stories that social researchers might come to know.

BackgroundOne in three women around the world are or have been subjected to violence. This includes in Australia, where violence against women is an urgent public health and human rights issue. Immigrant and refugee women who have resettled in Australia are known to face barriers accessing services aimed at preventing and responding to family violence. However there is little evidence about the contexts, nature and dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women to inform appropriate responses to enhance their safety and well-being. The ASPIRE project will address this gap by identifying opportunities for the development of responsive local and community-based interventions for family violence against immigrant and refugee women, contributing to the currently limited Australian research in this area.Methods/DesignThis participatory research project will work with communities in eight geographic locations (two inner-city, three outer-suburban, and three regional) across two states (Victoria and Tasmania), to generate evidence about immigrant and refugee women’s experiences in a range of settings. The project will engage stakeholders and communities through extensive consultation prior to data collection and by facilitating community members’ participation in generating and analysing data. A mix of qualitative methods will be used to generate rich data about the family, cultural and place-based contexts that shape the prevalence and dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women; women’s prevention and help-seeking efforts; and community attitudes about and responses to violence across a range of cultural groups. Methods include in-depth interviews with women who have experienced family violence, key informant interviews with local community service providers, focus group discussions with men and women from predominant cultural groups that have migrated to areas covered by the research sites, and Photovoice with community leaders. Bilingual health educators will contribute to development of the research approach, the collection and analysis of data, and the dissemination of findings.DiscussionFindings from this two-year study will be disseminated to communities, service providers and policy-makers, providing evidence to inform culturally-appropriate prevention and support interventions, and building local communities’ awareness and capacity to respond to violence against immigrant and refugee women.