Alice Goffman's On The Run: An Analysis

The idea that ‘ethical standards in social research are stricter today than ever before’ is discussed in relation to Alice Goffman’s On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City published in 2014 and Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics published by Scheper-Hughes in 2001. Goffman’s research was carried out roughly between 2002 and 2008 and is used to represent research carried out ‘today’. On the other hand, Scheper-Hughes’ research on a rural Irish area known as Ballybran or in reality as An Clochán was written in 1974 and 1975, being published in 1979. The book used for the purpose of this essay is the version published in 2001, which contains an epilogue and a prologue referencing her return to An Clochán in 1999. She found her return to
Harm can also be to the researcher and Goffman was put in harm’s way constantly. Despite the fact that she was not injured, she could have been. She was present at multiple shootings, fights and a pistol whipping. She was often the only white person around and was a woman in a very dangerous area (Goffman, 2014). Although Goffman did not inflict any literal harm, she did hope to, which is enough to break the ethical condition of no harm to participants. She was the get-a-way driver in an attempt to murder driven by a want for revenge for the murder of her friend (Goffman, 2014). Although not under the typical headings of ethical standards, Goffman committed a felony which breaks both the law and ethical credibility. Her crime was conspiracy to commit murder. “The Ethics Code of the American Sociological Association does not directly address the possibility of attempted murder”, as it is so blaringly unethical (Lubert, 2015). Her friend had been murdered and this was retaliation but “impulse control would seem to be an indispensable tool for the ethical ethnographer” (Lubert, 2015). Notwithstanding the lengthy list of ethical issues present in Saints, committing a crime, putting a participant’s life in danger and her own is the largest ethical issue there is and therefore it cannot be said that ethical standards, in relation to harm have become
However, there were unquestionably people in her research who did not know that she was a researcher. Examples include people the protagonists simply came into contact with or had criminal engagement with. This breaks ethical conditions but it would have been impractical and ridiculous for her to ask someone who had just beaten up her friend whether or not she was allowed to write about it in her research. The protagonists agreed to participate as long as she left out any cases that they did not want to be reported. They did not sign consent forms but gave her full permission. They knew that she was going to take note of all their illegal activity and the chaos in their everyday lives (Goffman, 2014). The same reaction to the publishing of her research as is accessible for Saints Scholars and Schizophrenics is not available, so it is more difficult to assess the extent to which they felt they give consent to what was