Ethics and Politics of Field Research in South Africa

This paper draws upon the author's background as a black South African, and her experience as a researcher trained in the United States and doing fieldwork on black children in South Africa, to identify and discuss the special ethical and political challenges of field investigation in an authoritarian context. The relevance of informed consent, and problems such as describing the research and following strategies necessary to gain access to subjects, are discussed. The paper concludes by arguing for a re-evaluation of informed consent and its relevance to research in authoritarian societies, and calls for collaboration between scientists from the West and those from other countries to work out appropriate research strategies where those studied are largely illiterate, impoverished, lacking basic individual rights, and living in an atmosphere of mistrust and potential, if not actual, violence.