[ABGESAGT] From “.” to “?” or how to leave the hall of mirrors?

Abstract

How to do ethical research? How to become an ethical researcher? What is ethical? And is this anyways a question I can ask and answer myself – autonomously – as academic subject?

As I engaged with normativity and ethics on a theoretical level in my research, I was confronted with my own (non)understanding – and lack of reflection – of my research ethics. In dialogue with texts, the place and participants of my research, questions arose such as “am I or my research tika (te reo Māori for true, good, right)?”, “what can I contribute, what is my action?”, “how would I fill out an ethics application, a must in Aotearoa New Zealand, but not for me – and would I even get approval?”

Upon my return to my German university environment, I was filled with inner struggles, bringing with me countless unanswered questions. Not infrequently, colleagues mirrored to me insecurity, my own devaluation of my research work, or a tendency to lose myself in theoretical reflections and considerations.

When coming about the metaphor of “leaving the hall of mirrors” described by Larsen and Johnson (2017) in their book Being together in place : Indigenous coexistence in a more than human world it helped me to make sense (or to start make sense) of my inner struggle. The authors describe their own research engagement as “spiritual and transformative journey” (2017, 13). They further write: “The hall of mirrors is a metaphor for the intellectual discourse that dominates ‘the academy’ […] This discourse is like a mirror in that it refers endlessly only to itself, both exclusionary of non-academic worldviews and assimilationist of those elements it finds desirable”. So how to leave the hall of mirrors? How does one open oneself to transformation?

Concepts that I consider productive – not in terms of answering but of raising questions – and would like to put in the room are the idea of ontological pluralism and a reflexive approach to ontology, recentering place and interconnectedness, our “throwntogetherness”, co-existence, and “being-together-in-place” (Massey 2005; Tuck & McKenzie 2016; Larsen & Johnson 2017). Coming back to the concept of (research) ethics, I want to support an understanding of a relational, dialogical ethics in and by place (see Tuck & McKenzie 2016; Zigon 2021). I would like to suggest an understanding of ethics not only as our (as academic subjects) reflective moment or way of thinking – but a field of complexity and insecurity, of negotiation and “in-between-ness”, being affected and sometimes losing ourselves when challenging our principles and ideals, subjectivity, agency, and ethical doing.