ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the complexities of obtaining informed consent in an ethnographic study of incarcerated youth in Denmark. Analysis of concrete examples that occurred when gaining access, finding a role and interviewing demonstrates that informed consent as a standardised research practice is often impossible to obtain. Rather, informed consent is an integral part of the research process and must be achieved actively through contextualised methods of engaging with young people. Informed consent then becomes part of the researcher’s ongoing negotiations with the young people under study. Consequently, the power relations that determine young people’s lives must be integrated into the research process to conduct ethically grounded ethnographies with vulnerable youth.
