Ethics, power, and responsibility in qualitative psychology: a duo-ethnographic inquiry

This paper emerges from a collaborative duo-ethnographic inquiry into the lived and contested dimensions of ethics in qualitative psychological research. Grounded in our diverse positionalities as researchers situated across disciplinary, institutional, and geopolitical contexts we reflect on the persistent dissonance between institutionalized procedural ethics and the ethical complexities encountered in practice. Through reflexive and collaborative analysis, we identify four interwoven tensions that structure our inquiry: the mismatch between institutional ethics and ethical responsibility; informed consent as a point of ethical and political tension; the challenges of navigating the tensions and paradoxes within ethical practice; and the entanglement of ethics with political structures and power dynamics. Rather than offering prescriptive solutions, we dwell within these tensions – inhabiting the discomfort, contradiction, and uncertainty that define ethical research as an ongoing, situated struggle.