Researchers With Benefits? Methodological and Ethical Challenges and Possibilities in Sexuality Research Within Marginalised Populations

Abstract

While the qualitative research interview can be a relevant and effective method, it can also be highly demanding for both the researcher and the participant. In this paper we analyse the methodological and ethical challenges that can arise for sexuality researchers who conduct interviews with members of marginalised communities. We thereby aim to open a discussion and contribute with knowledge that we ourselves missed as doctoral students – and still do as researchers – and which we therefore hope can be used in education as well as in continuous reflexive discussions among scholars conducting sexuality research in general – and in particular with individuals belonging to marginalised populations. We revisited our separate previous studies and made a joint re-analysis of our interview processes in three different projects conducted in Sweden between 2011 and 2021. Participants in the three studies were people with disability/chronic illness, transgender and non-binary gendered people and incarcerated young people in secure state care. We argue that the qualitative research interview can be seen and used by interviewees as an opportunity for advice and emotional support and that the methodology can bring added therapeutic value to participants whose sexual health needs have been previously ignored or denied. The researcher should therefore be prepared to share whatever sexuality-related knowledge or support the interviewee seeks – anything else would be unethical. Essentially, this concerns the very fundamental reason why we are doing research in the first place: to contribute to new knowledge on sexuality and thereby greater possibilities for the realisation of the sexual health and rights of persons belonging to marginalised communities – but without this happening in a way that jeopardises interviewees’ well-being. We therefore suggest that qualitative interviewing on sexuality requires systematic preparative work with reflexivity on how to balance research ethics, professional conduct and academic rigour.