Should we pay research participants? Feminist political economy for ethical practices in precarious times

Abstract

Questions of paying research participants have taken on a new urgency as contemporary geographies of precarity, inequality and austerity affect both potential participants and, to varying extents, early‐career researchers, while universities place greater emphasis on public engagement and research impact. Here, we offer reflections and recommendations that come from our experiences as PhD students in London, as precarious researchers researching precarious lives. We make a case for paying participants based on ethics of care and readings of precarity informed by feminist political economy. We discuss how and how much to pay. We recommend changes to institutional norms that have treated payments with suspicion, to research design and funding, and to ethical approval procedures and publishing practices.

Towards a Political Economy of Social Infrastructure: Contesting “Anti‐Social Infrastructures” in London

“…Interviewees included tenants, trade unionists, traders, councillors, and local organisers and activists, all of whom are long-term residents in the borough. Participants gave informed consent and, in recognition of their time, were offered vouchers of a value exceeding the London Living Wage (Warnock et al 2022). We also collated relevant official records and policy documents that set out the arguments for the HDV, and reviewed media coverage and social media content.…”

Ethical Principles, Social Harm and the Economic Relations of Research: Negotiating Ethics Committee Requirements and Community Expectations in Ethnographic Research in Rural Malawi

“…There are well rehearsed debates around compensation for participation, voluntary consent and obligations to reciprocate in contexts of wealth inequality (see Hammett & Sporton, 2012; Head, 2009; Warnock et al, 2022). Countering the various arguments against the practice are arguments in favor which include overcoming some of the power imbalance between researchers and participants and offering fair reciprocation for assistance.…”

Giving back and the moral logics of economic relations

“…He/she also has challenges in the life' (Field and Johar, 2021: 478). Being cognisant of the time 'taken up' by our research can lead researchers to want to give back in order to compensate for the time 'lost' by participants and assistants (Hammett and Sporton, 2012), particularly when those participants and assistants are facing significant financial or other challenges (Warnock et al, 2022).…”

“…Long-term relationships with research assistants may also encourage a different sort of reciprocity than that practiced with one-time participants (Molony and Hammett, 2007). While recognising the significant differences between these situations and the varied ethical, and practical, issues they may entail, such as those related to paying for participation (Hammett and Sporton, 2012;Warnock et al, 2022) or negotiating academic and financial acknowledgement for research assistance (Molony and Hammett, 2007), I treat them here under the broad umbrella of 'giving back' as I believe that, fundamentally, they relate to the same ethical question: what do we owe those we encounter in our research? Moreover, the messiness of research means that these situations are often not encountered in isolation but interpolated with each other, suggesting that it may be useful to consider them side by side.…”