ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the entanglement of accountabilities in the midst of research fieldwork that defies ethics as coded and planned by universities predetermined protocols and forms. Filing ethical protocols established by universities – in the light of national and supranational requirements – and waiting weeks or months for approval to proceed with the research has become routine for academics in numerous countries. The extensive codification of research ethics has made the duty to account for one’s actions more explicit, with many scholars feeling more strongly that they are accountable for their behaviour and actions before, during and after field research. The context specific ethical issues at stake between fieldwork access, academic freedom and accountability relations with responding institutions has been an on-going source of critical reflexivity, if not a research object on its own. The chapter aims to account for ethical dilemmas emerging from unexpected events that may occur in the midst of ethnographic observations with security actors.
