Are concerns about protecting “vulnerable” participants keeping us from realizing the emancipatory potential of qualitative research?

Emphasizing the need to “manage” relationships with participants, and seeing qualitative research as “demand[ing] constant vigilance to safeguard their privacy and safety” makes it seem as if participants have little agency, and our responsibility as researchers is to design studies aimed primarily at “harm minimization” for these “vulnerable” people. In this Commentary, we question whether such “protections” can become ritualized in ways that might not actually fit the experiences of many such people. We ask whether the emphasis on safety in qualitative inquiry may be limiting the emancipatory potential of such work for both researchers and participants. Using our research grounded in the assumptions of the international Hearing Voices Movement (HVM), we discuss complexities in negotiating key insider-outsider quandaries, and the challenges of positionality as researchers who have a stake in the development of a wider range of alternatives to mainstream approaches. We highlight how qualitative research takes place in an encounter, with benefits and risks for both participant and researcher.