Interactive Workshop on Best Practices in Ethics, York St John University, York, UK (2025)

What does flexibility mean for the researcher when it comes to the question of anonymizing or not anonymizing?

Dr Kasturi Hazarika, Academic Staff in York Business School

When conducting any interview, individuals may sometimes say that they would like their interviews to be not anonymised. However, the researcher may have obligations as a part of the ethics approval process to anonymise any comments, opinions made the interviewee during the interview process for a variety of reasons. The kind of opinions shared, comments made and their implications on both the researcher and the interviewee may not be known till the process of data analysis and sometimes till the end of the study or publication of the data. Sometimes it could have implications for the researcher and their research and sometimes it may have implications for the interviewee themselves, which they may not be aware of when sharing their opinions during the time of the interview. Sometimes, it could also be the case that it would benefit the researcher and their research and the interviewee to have their data non-anonymised. As stated, whether anonymizing is for the good or for the bad, will not be known till the process of data analysis or the data publications process. So, there is a lot of uncertainty here and the researcher is bound by what they should do and how they should conduct the research and the data collection process. So, what does flexibility mean for the ethics process and how and why the researcher can be best placed sometimes to use their discretion in deciding what to do under such circumstances. In this workshop, I will explore the meaning of flexibility in ethics when encountered with the question of anonymizing or not anonymizing when conducting any research in an ethical manner. In the workshop questions of flexibility surrounding anonymity as understood by various researchers present at the workshop will be discussed and how they have navigated such situations if they found themselves in one.