Recruiting participants: A socratic dialogue on the ethics and challenges of encountering research participants

Abstract

In this chapter, we stage a Socratic Dialogue about a taken-for-granted and undervalued empirical research process: participant recruitment. Being enveloped in different spaces, communities, and research contexts, we reflect upon ethical dilemmas which emerge out of recruitment processes. We offer examples from our research practice and consider our experience of overcoming our own anxieties around researching in distinct communities. In the chapter, Todd discusses his experience of 'recruitment' through collaboration with participants and organisations which support them. By reflecting on his research with(in) young trans communities and the feminist and participatory ethos which guides this process, Todd explores participant engagement in a context wherein trust, long-term collaboration, trans allyship and social justice and the provision of 'safe spaces' are necessary recruitment and research components. In contrast, Doppelhofer explores his experience of conducting research in open, public spaces wherein ad hoc participant recruitment takes place in an intrinsically international tourism and heritage context. He examines the difficulties of approaching potential tourist participants, gaining access to heritage stakeholders and policy makers, and overcoming cultural barriers. By reflecting on our experiences of recruitment, we consider our positionalities in the research site and beyond - Todd as a queer, cisgender scholar in trans spaces, and Doppelhofer as an enthusiast and follower of the same cultural phenomenon he researches. We elucidate what participant recruitment means in different contexts and what ethical, practical, and theoretical issues one might encounter, considerations that must be made when implementing particular recruitment strategies. In doing so, we generate knowledges out of our respective relative failures and successes recruiting.