Illegal or unethical? Situated ethics in the context of a dual economy

Abstract

In this paper, I draw on my experiences doing field research in Cuba, to contribute to the idea that participating in illegal activities is not necessarily unethical. Using a reflexive analysis, I argue that as a foreign researcher in Cuba’s dual economy, full participation in Cubans’ daily life—though illegal for both the researcher and the participants—was necessary to establish trust. This allowed me to gain social access to the field while allowing participants to spread the risk. Ultimately, it led to a more accurate account of Cubans’ daily practices through which I was able to address unbalanced and misinformed interpretations of the island and its people, which is crucial in the midst of highly politicized literature on Cuba.

Spatializing Solidarity: Agricultural Cooperatives as Solidarity Transformers in Cuba*

“…Households live on cooperative land (belonging to CPA1 or CCS1) and are either members of one of these two cooperatives or members of one of the three other cooperatives (CPA2, CPA3, or CCS2). We conducted 22 in‐depth interviews with members of the Board of Directors (BoD) of different cooperatives (3), active and retired CPA members (7), individual CCS farmers (8), and obreros (4), to maximize the variety of perspectives and relations to the cooperative covered (see Bono 2020; Bono and Finn 2017 for more on the field work methods and ethics). The interviews were semistructured and open‐ended, that is, carried out in a conversational manner, but following a certain line of inquiry (Yin 2003).…”

“…If unaddressed during the interview, we asked interviewees to comment on statements from a guidebook to the cooperatives, published by the ANAP (Table 2). Additionally, one of the authors lived and worked in the community for four months (Bono 2020). This period of observation allowed to add to and cross‐check information from interviews.…”

Beyond ‘do no harm’? On the need for a dynamic approach to research ethics

“…Increasing levels of governance, bureaucracy, standardisation, and routinised quality assurance practices and accountability (Dyer & Demeritt, 2009;Morris, 2015) have resulted in universalised procedural ethics requirements that are becoming "more akin to a risk management exercise … [rather than] adequately address[ing] the ethics needs of qualitative researchers" (Tolich & Fitzgerald, 2006, p. 73). Research ethics are thus often encountered as a hoop-jumping process to be tolerated, with researchers self-censoring and 'playing the game' by providing rehearsed, formulaic responses to what is seen as a bureaucratic, administrative box-ticking ritual (Allen & Israel, 2018;Haggerty, 2004;Martin, 2007; Against this backdrop, calls for a move to dialogical, reflexive ethics approaches have been led by feminist geographers and participatory action researchers (Allen & Israel, 2018;Blazek & Askins, 2020;Bono, 2020;Cahill, 2007;Pain, 2008;Tolich & Fitzgerald, 2006). These efforts have drawn attention to individual ethical practices, the personal as political, and the need to respect and understand that "ethical concepts and issues are socio-culturally and contextually specific" (Pain, 2008, p. 105).…”

Cultural practices and organizational ethnography: implications for fieldwork and research ethics

“…Being reflexive and aware of one’s positionality helps researchers manage divisive topics and the process of taking sides (Calvey, 2020; Cupit et al. , 2021; Liong, 2015), as well as to navigate complex ethical dilemmas (Armstrong-Gibbs, 2019; Bono, 2020; Boser, 2007; Connolly and Reid, 2007). Being reflexive and aware of the influences of positionalities pushes researchers to adopt a situated approach to ethics that enables them to ethically deal with the unpredictable nature of fieldwork (Ilkjær and Madsen, 2020; Perez, 2019).…”