CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Cardillo, L. W. (1999, May). Sense-Making as theoretical foundation for ethical praxis in qualitative research. Paper presented at a non-divisional workshop held at the meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.
© Linda Wheeler Cardillo (1999).

ESSENCE OF PROJECT:
I am currently interested in exploring Sense-Making as theoretical foundation for ethical praxis in qualitative research. Increasingly, thoughtful scholars are attending to the many ethical concerns and issues that arise in the research of human experience. Issues of the ethics of representation, the ethical treatment of subjects within and beyond the research context, the interpretation and generalization of subjects’ personal narratives, the “ownership” of knowledge and its generation, are but the tip of the ethical iceberg. I believe Sense-Making, as theory and method, offers an approach that is ethically defensible in terms of these issues.

THE REASONS I TOOK THIS ROAD:
In pursuing my research interests, I have been increasingly interested and involved in Sense-Making and the possibilities it offers as a theory and method for understanding lived experience. At the same time, I have a long-standing interest in the ethics of researching human experience, particularly in the realm of qualitative research since this is the area of my background and training and the context within which my own research interests are situated. I feel very strongly that researchers have a serious responsibility to think critically, humbly, and reflexively about the ethical implications of research methods and practices in terms of their consequences for social knowledge and for subjects participating in research. And yet, while the move to grapple reflexively with the challenging ethical implications and resulting responsibilities of presuming to delve into, interpret, represent, and generalize as “knowledge” the thoughts and experiences of those we designate as “others” is, I believe, vital, it can also be paralyzing.

Some scholars go so far as to conclude that such research is inherently and hopelessly unethical, leaving researchers with the choice seeming to be between, on the one hand, abandoning such research, along with the possibility of employing qualitative research to contribute to knowledge that can serve to improve the human condition; and, on the other hand, resigning themselves to pursuing their life’s work in ways that are inevitably and unavoidably unethical, with “self-reflexive” mea culpas that seem primarily to serve to expunge the author’s guilt. Observing these responses, and finding both to be unsatisfactory, has led me more and more to ask: “Is there a way to conduct qualitative research ethically? Are there approaches that, theoretically and methodologically, can help to ensure more ethical research processes and outcomes?” As I have studied and applied Sense-Making, I have become more and more convinced that Sense-Making offers a theory and method that is not only ethically defensible, but which is, more than many other approaches, inherently ethical in its approach to knowledge and to participants in qualitative research.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED:
I conducted a very long, in-depth Sense-Making interview with a young woman in remission after treatment during adolescence for acute lymphocytic leukemia. In preparing, conducting, writing up the results of, and reflecting upon this process, and in the context of my delving into the literature on ethics in qualitative research, I have given a great deal of thought to the ethical issues involved in qualitative research and to the ways that Sense-Making may or may not satisfactorily resolve these issues. Although I continue to struggle with the ethical implications and responsibilities of all research methods, including Sense-Making, in contexts such as this, I found throughout this process and since that Sense-Making answers my concerns more satisfactorily than other research methods I have considered.

WHAT HAS BEEN HELPFUL:
The long Sense-Making interview I conducted stimulated a good deal of thinking about the many ethical issues about which I am concerned. Reading Dervin’s Sense-Making work and discussing Sense-Making with others has been very helpful. Participating in Sense-Making rounds with other students has given me many very helpful opportunities to get valuable feedback from others about my projects and thinking and to learn from others’ progress and struggles in their projects. Also very helpful and stimulating to my thinking on ethical issues in qualitative research has been my review of feminist perspectives on ethics and research methodology; explorations of issues of difference (specifically, through the challenges and insights offered by disability studies); reviews of the use of narrative; and comparisons of Sense-Making interviewing with some other types of interviews (e.g., interactive interviewing).

WHAT I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
I have and continue to struggle with my worries about a number of issues relating to qualitative research (including, and in some cases specific to, Sense-Making), and the ethical responsibilities that these imply for researchers:

1. Conscientizing: In order to learn about the world and the sense that people make of it and the processes by which they make that sense, Sense-Making interviews are explicitly and deliberately designed to facilitate conscientizing-bringing to consciousness in respondents and exposing that which has been unconscious, hidden, denied, buried. Sense-Making trusts that exploring the thoughts, feelings, confusions, rememberings, and insights that respondents offer is not only a good way to come to a deeper understanding of humans and their behaviors and interactions, but an absolutely necessary way. But leading another, however gently, on such a journey is always a risky business, even for mental health professionals. What ethical responsibilities does this issue imply for researchers using Sense-Making interviews?

2. Sense-Making vs. interactive interviewing: Many qualitative researchers concerned with the ethical treatment of subjects within the research process, as well as the question of the kinds of understanding or “truth” that can be expected to emerge from various interviewing methods, advocate interactive interviewing, an approach that differs from Sense-Making in significant ways. In interactive interviewing, both respondent and researcher enter into a deep sharing of their experiences, thoughts, emotions, and insights in a process that is likely to involve multiple encounters over an extended period of time and the development of an ongoing relationship that may go well beyond the research itself. In this context, the lines between researcher and subject and between research and friendship, caretaking, and/or therapy are blurred. What is gained and what is lost in the Sense-Making approach as compared with this kind of interactive interviewing?

3. Interpretation: Sense-Making mandates that researchers refrain from imposing their worldviews on respondents in order to allow the respondent’s own definition and understanding of his or her experiences to emerge and then be placed in communion and contest with others’ views. But how possible is this goal of non-imposition?
a. The moment that the terrain of the interview is described (e.g., “I’m interested in how adolescents feel about how their doctors talk with them and with their parents, how much control kids feel they have or don’t have in these situations, and how they feel about that...”), the world has, to some extent, been mapped for the respondent (e.g., in this example, the message is that control or lack of it is identified as an issue that is assumed to have consequences that we’re going to call to consciousness and explore together-whether the respondent has thought about it before or not).
b. The researcher ultimately has the responsibility and power of interpreting the respondent’s words, of making judgments about what the respondent really meant and what we can know as a result.

4. Representation: Related to concerns about interpretation are concerns about the representation of others’ experiences, feelings, and thoughts. In the end, the researcher has the power and the authority over the respondent’s narrative and its meaning. How will the respondent be represented? What are the researcher’s responsibilities if the respondent objects to/disagrees with the way he or she is represented?

5. Exploitation: In what ways can the appropriation of others’ narratives for the researcher’s purposes-no matter how laudable and benevolent the researcher may believe those purposes to be-become exploitation? How do researchers avoid participating in a process that essentially is, or may be perceived as, one of seduction and betrayal?

WHAT WOULD HELP NOW:
I would be greatly helped by suggestions, challenges, learnings, and references that others may offer from their own experiences and reading regarding ethical issues in qualitative research.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
I believe that Sense-Making offers the possibility of an inherently ethical approach to research of human experience and behavior. For example, in theory and practice, Sense-Making explicitly mandates and enacts the privileging of the voice of the other as theorist of his or her own experience and the world. The presumption of ontological and epistemological gappiness demands a humble circling of reality, with all perspectives and assumptions placed into communion and contest, minimizing the possibility that the researcher’s perspective will be imposed and asserted as authoritative knowledge. The theoretically-grounded Sense-Making interview moves beyond empathy to the procedural enacting of non-impositional respect and regard for the unique and valued perspective of the respondent-a stance and a procedure that is mandated by the theory of Sense-Making. For the Working Seminar, I hope to explore these and other aspects of Sense-Making as ethical praxis.

REFERENCES:
(For references to works by Dervin and colleagues, see Dervin’s writings: Chronological listing.)

Alcoff, L. (1991-1992). The problem of speaking for others. Cultural Critique, 20 (5-32).

Denzin, N. K. (1994). The art and politics of interpretation. In N. K. Denzin. & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 500-515). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Fine, M. (1994). Working the hyphens: Reinventing self and other in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 70-82). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hertz, R. (1997). Reflexivity and voice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Josselson, R. (1996). Ethics and process in the narrative study of lives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mortensen, P. & Kirsch, G. E. (1996). Ethics and representation in qualitative studies of literacy. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistcardillo.html