This study investigates the motivations, views and experiences of semen donors willing to have contact with their offspring. An online questionnaire for semen donors was posted by the US-based Donor Sibling Registry in 2009. A total of 164 respondents who had previously been donors completed the questionnaire, which consisted of 45 open and closed questions covering motivations for donating, health and medical information, experiences of donating, contact with offspring and implications of donating and contact for their families. The donors' primary motivation was to help other families, although payment was also a factor. Almost all donors were open to contact with their offspring and, where donors were partnered, three-quarters of the partners also supported possible contact. Almost one-third, however, had reservations about contact or were opposed. Two-thirds of donors' own children were interested in meeting the offspring. Contact between a donor and his offspring is often seen as a coming together of these two people only. The results of this study suggest that there are important ramifications for both of the families who become linked. Understanding gamete donation in this broader family context is crucial to the contribution that health professionals can make in this area.

A sizeable number of New Zealand homes contain at least one companion animal – and many of these are afforded the status of family member by their human owner(s). It follows then that when a series of high-magnitude earthquakes shook the New Zealand city of Christchurch and the Canterbury region it is located within, many people and their companion animals were impacted. Generic and disaster-specific research into animal-human relationships has mostly been undertaken outside of the profession of social work. However, a number of recent social work research and theoretical papers draw attention to the need for this discipline to also embrace this field (Evans Gray, 2012; Morley Fook, 2005; Tedeschi, Fitchett, Molidor, 2005; Risley-Curtiss, Holley, Wolf, 2006b; Risley-Curtiss, 2010). The aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes has revealed a need to look critically at how animal-human relationships are perceived, and the potential for these relationships to be considered within routine social work assessments and interventions. This paper considers the role of companion animals in people’s lives, addresses the status of these animals during the Canterbury earthquakes, explores issues of loss and resiliency within animal-human relationships and looks at the implications of these relationships for social work practice and research.

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Ethnographic researchers entering sensitive fields of research become entangled in ethical dilemmas when they encounter ‘sticky’ questions, situations and issues. In undertaking research within two distinct sex worlds: female sex work and male sexual negotiation/risk and HIV, we struggled to manage the contingent links between our relationships with the people who inhabit these worlds, the ethical requirements of our institutional ethics committees, and our hybrid selves. In the context of ‘doing’ intimate ethnography, we were required to craft ourselves into the field and establish a number of intimate and prolonged relationships. While the participants in our studies were active in giving their consent, this did not obviate the risk that they would become objectified within the field relationship and the texts the research generated. These issues are central to our discussion as we consider the lack of fit between ethical guidelines and the practical reality of fieldwork.

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