ABSTRACT
On “seeing” ethical practice In her confronting and challenging book Regarding the pain of others, Susan Sontag (2003) analysed images of war and asked us: When we look at the same photographs do we feel the same things? She argued that we see through the prism of our prejudices and expectations; that we have a capacity for both intimacy and dissociation. The capricious viewer can choose to stay and watch, or go and forget. Sontag’s work may seem a far cry from the concept of living ethical practice in qualitative research, but there are many invisible threads that can hold the two together. What do we believe ethical practice to be and how can we live it in our work? This chapter is written from the standpoint of my own experience, as one who has retired from full-time academic work but continues to engage in participatory action research (PAR) with field-based practitioners, more often than not as a consultant. Thus, viewing my practice is mediated by my personal position and what governs it.
