Research Ethics in Human Geography

This book explores common ethical issues faced by human geographers in their research. It offers practical guidance for research planning and design that incorporates geographic disciplinary knowledge to conceptualise research ethics. The volume brings together international insights from researchers in geography and related fields to provide a comprehensive overview of relevant ethical frameworks and challenges in human geography research. It includes in-depth reflections on a range of ethical dilemmas that arise in certain contextual conditions and spatial constructions that face those researching and teaching on spatial dimensions of social life. With a focus on the increased need for specialist ethics training as part of postgraduate education in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the necessity for fostering sensitivity in cross-cultural comparative research, the book seeks to enable people to engage in ethical decision-making and moral reasoning while conducting research. Chapters examine the implications of geographical research for conceptualising ethics and discuss specific case studies from which more general conclusions, linked to conceptual debates, are drawn. As a research-based reference guide for tackling ethically sensitive projects and international differences in legal and institutional standards and requirements, the book is useful for postgraduate and undergraduate students as well as academics teaching at senior levels.

1. Reflecting Research Ethics: A Constant Need Judith Miggelbrink, Kathrin Hörschelmann and Sebastian Henn Part 1: Ethics in Human Geographical Research 2. Caring About Research Ethics and Integrity in Human Geography Ian Hay and Mark Israel 3. Research Ethics in Human and Physical Geography: Ethical Literacy, the Ethics of Intervention, and the Limits of Self-Regulation Susann Schäfer 4. Childhood is a Foreign Country? Ethics in Socio-Spatial Childhood Research as a Question of ‘How’ and ‘What’ Kathrin Hörschelmann 5. Ethical Challenges Arising from the Vulnerability of Refugees and Asylum Seekers Within the Research Process Dorit Happ 6. Research Ethics and Inequalities of Knowledge Production in Eastern Europe and Eurasia Kristine Beurskens, Madlen Pilz and Lela Rekhviashvili 7. Sensitive Topics in Human Geography – Insights from Research on Cigarette Smugglers and Diamond Bettina Dealers Bruns and Sebastian Henn 8. Volunteer-Practitioner Research, Relationships and Friendship-Liness: Re-Enacting Geographies of Care Matej Blazek and Kye Askins Part 2: Research Ethics in the Wider Academic Context 9. Illegal Ethnographies: Research Ethics Beyond the Law Thomas Dekeyser and Bradley Garret 10. Researcher Trauma: Considering the Ethics, Impacts and Outcomes of Research on Researchers Danielle Drozdzewski and Dale Dominey-Howes 11. Practical Ethics Approaches for Engaging Ethical Issues in Research Geography Francis Harvey 12. Facing Moral Dilemmas as a Method: Teaching Ethical Research Principles to Geography Students in Higher Education Jeannine Wintzer and Christoph Baumann 13. Doing Geography in Classrooms: The Ethical Dimension of Teaching and Learning Mirka Dickel and Fabian Pettig 14. Ethics of Reflection: A Directional Perspective Matthew G. Hannah

Sebastian Henn holds the Chair in Economic Geography at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. His research interests focus on knowledge transfers over geographical distance, urban economies as well as on migration and regional development. Judith Miggelbrink, holds the Chair of Human Geography at Technische Universität Dresden. Herresearch focuses onsocial geography and globalisation. Currently, her projects deal with securitisation in border regions, cross-border medical practices, peripheralisation and regionalisation. Her methodological focus is on qualitative methods as well as mixed methods. Kathrin Hörschelmann is Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Bonn, Germany. Her research focuses on the entangled geographies of (in)security, with a particular interest in childhood and youth. She is co-author of Children, Youth and the City and co-editor of Spaces of Masculinities.