We have seen that attempts to separate knowledge from values and objective stances from subjective engagement are impossible to sustain and that any ethical approach to research must consider what matters to people, who the research impacts and in what way. These arguments are not new – critical social scientists have been struggling with them for decades. But positivist assumptions endure, and simplistic linear models of impact continue to be used in assessing research value. Ethical procedures focus primarily if not exclusively on the capacity of researchers to predetermine ethical challenges and develop procedural mechanisms to specify how these will be met. Methodology texts prioritise techniques for data collection and analysis rather than focusing on the researcher as a practitioner engaged in creating and sustaining relationships capable of improving wellbeing and contributing to social justice objectives. This all means that it is still necessary to find ways of understanding what it means to recognise research as a dynamic, relational and political – as well as ethical – practice. What does researching with care actually mean in practice?

As we started working on this book we reflected on experiences that, as new researchers, had troubled us and suggested to us that we were somehow not getting it right, that we were failing in what it meant to be a good researcher. Often those troubles emerged out of insecurities and uncertainties concerning our relationships with those we were researching. Research encounters were often unpredictable and we felt unprepared to deal with the responses of those we approached to take part in our projects. And if we did in some way anticipate reluctance, anxiety or confrontation on the part of those we sought to research, it was not possible to specify in advance what would be the ‘right’ way for us as researchers to respond. Those troubles suggested we were somehow failing if we focused on the relationships generated within a research project rather than on the techniques of the particular methodology we were employing; if we mixed up emotions (ours or those of the people we were researching) with evidence, or acknowledged that our personal histories or experiences might impact our scholarship.