Research Ethics in Biographical Research: Challenges in the Field of Political Participation

Abstract

In this article, I am dealing with ethical challenges in biographical research drawing on my research experiences in the context of a study in the field of political participation. In the first part, I discuss general ethical questions in biographical research related to the collection and the analysis of biographical narrative interviews. In the second part, I sketch specific ethical aspects and problems that arose from the research process and that challenge the premises of reconstructive biographical analysis. Among these are informed consent as a dialogical process, the anonymization of biographical data, and the reporting back of biographical data in a highly sensible field. I conclude by discussing the possibilities and limits of the research workshop setting for the reflection of ethical questions in biographical research.