Risk, Consent, Collaboration, and Accountability in Ethnographic Theologies and Qualitative Research

Inspired by the conference theme of Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margin, this workshop will support theological researchers to assess risk in their research methods and to engage in constructive practices of nonviolence, consent, collaboration, and accountability as researchers, writers, and teachers. Even as scholars follow necessary institutional processes designed to protect human subjects, these protocols often do not sufficiently address potential harms of ethnographic and qualitative research, nor do they require expansive forms of accountability both within and beyond the research context. Moreover, protocols required by an institutional review process can be experienced as barriers to consent in some cultural contexts. Workshop leaders will share brief presentations on one or more practices in research methods and lead table groups in further engagement with this topic in an interactive session. Participants will have the opportunity to select a workshop focus that is most relevant for their current research, writing, and/or teaching.