Table Of ContentDANGER IN THE FIELD
The nature of qualitative inquiry means that researchers constantly have to deal with
the unexpected, and all too often this includes coping with the presence of danger or
risk. Danger in the Field is an innovative and lively analysis of the experience of
different forms of danger in various qualitative research settings. Made up of
researchers’ reflexive accounts of their own encounters with ‘danger’ while carrying
out research, this book expands our common sense use of the term to encompass not
just physical danger, but emotional, ethical and professional danger too. In addition
the authors pay special attention to the gendered forms of danger implicit in the
research process.
From the physical danger of researching the night club ‘bouncer’ scene to the ethical
dangers of participant observation in a home for older people, these contributions
provide researchers and students with thought-provoking insights into the importance
of a well-chosen research design.
Geraldine Lee-Treweek is Lecturer in Sociology at the Department of Applied Social
Science, Stirling University. Stephanie Linkogle is Lecturer in Sociology at the School
of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex.
DANGER IN THE FIELD
Risk and ethics in social research
Edited by
Geraldine Lee-Treweek and
Stephanie Linkogle
London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, NewYork, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 2000 selection and editorial matter, Geraldine Lee-Treweek and Stephanie Linkogle; individual
chapters the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lee-Treweek, Geraldine, 1969–
Danger in the field: risk and ethics in social research /Geraldine Lee-Treweek and Stephanie Linkogle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Social scientists–Vocational guidance. 2. Social scientists–Professional ethics. 3. Social sciences–
Research–Moral and ethical aspects.
I. Linkogle, Stephanie. II.Title.
H62.L419 2000
300'.7'2–dc21 00–035278
ISBN 0–415–19321–4 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–19322–2 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13611-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-18539-0 (Glassbook Format)
CONTENTS
Notes on contributors vii
Acknowledgements x
Overview 1
GERALDINE LEE-TREWEEK AND STEPHANIE LINKOGLE
1 Putting danger in the frame 8
GERALDINE LEE-TREWEEK AND STEPHANIE LINKOGLE
2 Taking the flak: operational policing, fear and violence 26
LOUISE WESTMARLAND
3 Getting on the door and staying there: a covert participant
observational study of bouncers 43
DAVID CALVEY
4 Negotiating danger in fieldwork on crime: a researcher’s tale 61
JANET JAMIESON
5 Bacteria and babies: a personal reflection on researcher risk in a
hospital 72
GLORIA LANKSHEAR
6 Dangerous liaisons: auto/biography in research and
research writing 91
GAYLE LETHERBY
v
CONTENTS
7 The insight of emotional danger: research experiences in a
home for older people 114
GERALDINE LEE-TREWEEK
8 Relajo: danger in a crowd 132
STEPHANIE LINKOGLE
9 Body, career and community: the implications of researching
dangerous groups 147
ARTHUR J. JIPSON AND CHAD E. LITTON
10 Whiteness: endangered knowledges, endangered species? 168
JOHN GABRIEL
11 Sheer foolishness: shifting definitions of danger in conducting
and teaching ethnographic field research 181
JEFF D. PETERSON
Postscript 197
GERALDINE LEE-TREWEEK AND STEPHANIE LINKOGLE
Index 205
vi
CONTRIBUTORS
David Calvey is a Research Fellow at CRIC (ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation
and Competition) and an Honorary Fellow in the Sociology Department at
Manchester University. His research interests are in critical organisation studies,
popular cultural studies, ethnomethodology and ethnography. He has held various
lecturing and research positions at the Universities of Manchester, UMIST,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Liverpool John Moores University and the
University of Queensland, Australia.
John Gabriel is Professor of Sociology and Head of Department of Sociology and
Applied Social Studies at London Guildhall University. His recent publications
include Racism, Culture, Markets (Routledge, 1994) and Whitewash (Routledge,
1998).
Janet Jamieson is a Research Fellow at the Social Work Research Centre, University of
Stirling. Working in the field of Social Work and Criminal Justice she has conducted
research exploring young people’s understanding of offending, evaluative studies
of four intensive probation projects and contributed to a study on the Scottish
Children’s Hearing System. Her current research interests include young people
and offending, women offenders, community and crime and the perspective and
experiences of ethnic-minority young people in Glasgow on offending and
victimisation.
Arthur J. Jipson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Miami University in Oxford,
Ohio. His research interests include white ‘racialism’, hate crime, the American
labour movement, Internet communication, the recording industry, and corporate
crime. He has been conducting research on white ‘racialists’, militia members, and
the American Patriot movement since 1993 and his current research projects include
re-examining the State of Indiana versus Ford Motor Company case and the
construction and utility of hate crime legislation. Dr Jipson has been published in
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CONTRIBUTORS
Popular Music and Society and ChildNews and also has appeared on CNN, TBS
and National Public Radio’s ‘All Things Considered’.
Gloria Lankshear is a Research Fellow in Sociology at the University of Plymouth. She
gained a degree in Social Policy and Administration and an MSc in Research
Methods before undertaking research about community care. Her PhD focused
on the barriers to the implementation of new technology in the National Health
Service and this has led to her current research interest in new technology and its
surveillance capabilities.
Geraldine Lee-Treweek is Lecturer in Sociology at Stirling University with teaching
and research interests in the fields of the sociology of health and illness and
qualitative methodologies. Her current research focus is the study of the
rehabilitation of people with back pain and she has an ongoing interest in the
study of emotional labour in a variety of work settings.
Gayle Letherby is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Coventry University. Her research
and writing interests include all things methodological including auto/ biography
and feminist research in theory and practice, motherhood/non-motherhood, kinship
and the family and working and learning in higher education.
Stephanie Linkogle is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex in the School of
African and Asian Studies. Her research interests include women’s popular
movements in Central America, feminist movements, sociology of religion, research
methodology, cultural studies and the media. Her publications include Gender,
Practice and Faith in Nicaragua: Constructing the Popular and Making Common
Sense (Avebury, 1996), and articles in Bulletin of Latin American Research, Race
and Class and Sociological Research Online.
Chad E. Litton is Assistant Professor of Sociology at South-Eastern Oklahoma State
University. His primary interests lie in the study of new religious movements, ideology
development, commodification of sexuality, extremist ideology, rural culture, and
undergraduate education.
Jeff D. Peterson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Linfield College in McMinnville,
Oregon. His research includes work on squatters in the United States and urban
social movements in Mexico. His most recently published article is ‘La Lucha Por El
Ciudadano: Movimientos Sociales, Pronasol, y La Teoria de Nuevos Movimientos
Sociales en Guadalajara, Mexico’ in Espiral No. 15 (May–Aug) 1999, University
of Guadalajara. He also has an ongoing research project on transitions in Latino
cultural identity in Oregon.
Louise Westmarland is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Teesside. Her PhD
was an ethnographic study of gender and operational policing. She is interested in
viii
CONTRIBUTORS
the ways force and strength interact with embodied authority in terms of the
enactment of power, social control and masculinity. At present she is working on a
book about gender and the covert worlds of surveillance teams and detective
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