Designing Research to Produce Usable Knowledge from Archives that Have Significant Ethical and Privacy Constraints

Authors

Kelsi Semeschuk, BlueSky Psychology, AustraliaFollow

Abstract

Archives are sometimes imagined to be dusty repositories of historical documents. The considerations of care and ethical practice at the heart of qualitative research with active participants may not seem relevant. However, when archives contain sensitive information about people, living or no longer living, and those people cannot be consulted about the use of the materials, significant ethical issues arise. This paper offers innovative ways of balancing a desire to explore the treasures of a highly sensitive archive with rigorous attention to the rights and interests of those whose stories the archive holds. Based on research with a video archive of recorded therapy sessions left by Michael White, the co-originator of narrative therapy, my paper sets out a series of innovative responses to ethical considerations about the right to privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity. These include strategies to anonymize data while retaining context, re-presenting material in the archive so that it could be shared, creating a role for an advocate on behalf of people recorded in the archive, and using subjective learnings from the archive as a basis for collective practice-based research. This enabled the generation of research findings that are directly applicable to practitioners. The practices described make possible an “opening” of a previously locked archive. They also set out a possible pathway for others seeking to conduct research with highly sensitive archives.

Keywords

archival research, confidentiality, ethics, theory-building case study, poststructuralism, Michael White, narrative therapy

Author Bio(s)

Kelsi Semeschuk (ORCiD: 0000-0002-9171-1806) is a narrative therapist, registered psychologist, and researcher living in Adelaide/Tarntanya on Kaurna Land. She has a particular interest in supporting people with experiences of sexual abuse, interpersonal violence, and associated trauma and has a strong dedication to working from a feminist lens. Kelsi completed a Ph.D. through The University of Melbourne in conjunction with Dulwich Centre, focused on the video archive of Michael White and his therapeutic practice in the realms of abuse and trauma. Now practicing at BlueSky Psychology, Kelsi views her role as an absolute privilege, as it affords her an opportunity to integrate her research learnings with her therapeutic work with the aim of helping the people consulting her to navigate their lives towards their preferred identities that exist beyond the problem-saturated narratives that so often try to dominate their lives. Kelsi can be contacted at kelsi.semeschuk@gmail.com.au

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on doctoral research undertaken at The University of Melbourne. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of my supervisors, David Denborough, Lynette Joubert, and Louise Harms. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of David Denborough and Claire Nettle in the drafting and refinement of this paper.

Publication Date

12-16-2024

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7804

Recommended APA Citation

Semeschuk, K. (2024). Designing research to produce usable knowledge from archives that have significant ethical and privacy constraints. The Qualitative Report, 29(12), 96-106. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7804