ABSTRACT
Anonymization is today a standard procedure in social scientific research. While formal codes of ethics that research projects must comply with are broadly applied, some doubts about feasibility, ethics and implications of anonymization are being voiced. This chapter explores the relation between processes of anonymization and analytical and theoretical work on the topic of racism. In practice, anonymization frequently comes down to removing or changing people’s names and other details in the material that might lead to identification of those involved in the research. But what does it mean to remove a name or to rename a person in the context of research on racism? What sort of procedure does it require and what ethical dilemmas does such a procedure open up for? How does this practice change the material? What influence does it have on the analysis? And when and why, although performed for the sake of ethics, can renaming the research participants feel unethical? Drawing on the experience of the practical work with anonymization in a study of Swedish court cases addressing anti-Muslim racism, the chapter analyzes different relations between anonymization, empirical material, analysis, theorization and ethics.
