Ethical Issues in Researching Discourses of Sexual Harassment in Higher Education: Experiences from the University of Nairobi , Kenya.

Abstract

Most feminist researchers have not adequately addressed specific ethical dilemmas that emerge when conducting research on sexual harassment in African Higher Education institutions. S ince the study used some of the students’ direct and indirect autobiographies which were told under stigma, disbelief, and pain, th us, th e researcher had to consider ethics of research, since the stories helped uncover important aspects of social realities in the context institutional culture. In this paper I present ethical chal lenges which the researcher encounter ed while exploring discourses of sexual ha rassment , which if not dealt with professionally could affect quality of data. The ethical challenges discussed in this paper are based on a ccess and c onsent with the r esearch p articipants ; participant’s traumatic experiences; privacy and confidentiality o f the s tudy p articipants and d ata . The article is based on the authors ’ experiences on ethical issues drawn from a larger PhD study 2013 entitled: Exploring discourses of access and sexual harassment in Higher Education: A study of students’ perceptions of the University of Nairobi’s Institutional Culture, Kenya . Key words: Feminist research; sexual harassment; ethical dilemmas; consent; access; traumatised experiences; privacy; confidentiality