Qualitative research methods I: Emotionally engaged approaches to working with vulnerable participants

Abstract

This report highlights the need for distinct approaches in qualitative research when working with the pain of marginalised and vulnerable communities. Firstly, it argues for a need to incorporate ‘emotionally engaged research’ that acknowledges complicated entanglements between researchers and those we work with, particularly when conditions of pain are present. Secondly, it traces work in sensitive contexts to highlight effective strategies that aim to ‘do no harm’ and may also become a catalyst for easing pain. Thirdly, it identifies barriers to emotionally engaged work including the need to rethink training and support for researchers.

Domesticating Responsibility: Refugee Hosting and the Homes for Ukraine Scheme

“…These guest interviews were inevitably the most poignant. While we found common ground through gendered and parental identities especially (over half of the women had travelled to the UK with children), I was hit hard by my inadequacy as a researcher to really understand what they were going through (Butcher 2022). I may have only managed 15 of these interviews, and they were restricted to women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, so do not reflect the experiences of older (or male) refugees, but they are a powerful record of displacement, and “guesting” in particular, which is more usually occluded in academic research (Bassoli and Luccioni 2023:16).…”