The Ethics of Covert Participant Observation: The Perspective of Sociologists and SocioCultural Anthropologists

Abstract

In covert participant observation, the researcher deliberately conceals the conduct of the research and/or their research identity from research participants. This way of conducting research raises ethical controversies in the research community due to, among other things, the lack of informed consent to participate in the study, the risk of violating the privacy of the research participants, and deceiving them. Anglophone codes of ethics for anthropologists suggest the unethicality of covertly obtaining data; the exception is research carried out in the public sphere or a case when such a disclosure would endanger someone’s life. In contrast, the Code of Ethics for Sociologists of the Polish Sociological Association (2012) condones covert research as an exception when there are methodological reasons to do so. However, little is known about how sociologists and anthropologists evaluate such a practice from the ethical point of view. On the basis of in-depth interviews with 56 anthropologists and sociologists on the subject of research ethics in research practice, I analyze under what conditions – according to my interviewees – the conduct of covert participant observation can be justified. I also answer the question whether the opinions of sociologists differ from those of anthropologists on this issue.