Now: Contemporary Ethics & Design

Fredrick Douglas Family Foundation Backpage Action in Arizona, CATW, http://www.catwinternational.org/Media/Photos

Ethics: For many researchers now there’s obviously the need to remain objective when conducting research, but many groups are failing to conduct research for the right reasons. Many researchers these days have agendas. Often times, researchers are producing answers they want to hear. Usually, this is a product of their own believes or the foundations funding their research. 

In Jo Doezma’s book, Sex Slaves and Discourse Matters: The Construction of Trafficking, she highlights how many activists groups rely on falsely reported numbers to advance the trafficking debate.[1] They use multiple variables and a flawed definition of trafficking to create numbers that’ll attract attention.[2] It’s not to say that there aren’t individuals being trafficked. However, it’s important to understand how misreporting information doesn’t always help those in need. [3]  Many of these groups conduct and publish research, and if they are willing to adjust questions to receive the best numbers, how is it expected for them to produce good viable research? 

Many contemporary researchers are conducting good research, but many researchers affiliated with activist groups are making it difficult for research discourse to progress on an ethical front.

Design: Another issue troubling contemporary research design is the lack of diversity amongst the research. Specifically, contemporary sex work research consistently focuses on public health or questions supporting activist groups.[4] Unfortunately, in many cases groups are forced to frame their research in this way in order to receive funding.[5] However, Tiantian Zheng, a famous anthropologist and author, comments about the lack of progress within the research design, in her book Ethical Research With Sex Workers:

“In formulating ethical research questions, researchers should evade research questions that over-simplify and over-generalize sex workers. I have recommended that researchers go beyond the questions about power and agency and charter new areas of inquiries. I have used my own research and other sex work research to identify the under-explored, yet worthy and significant realms of inquiries such as the complex subject positions of sex workers, clients’ motivations, clients’ wives’ perspectives….”[6] 

Zheng is right that researchers fail to draw upon the experiences of the workers and those engaged, but it’s interesting to see that Parent-Duchatelet, one of the first researchers, reflects a research ideology that reputable researchers are encouraging people to explore today. This lack of change in discourse reflects how influential contemporary funding and approval is to achieving certain goals.  

[1] Dozema, Jo. Sex Slaves And Discourse Matters: The Construction Of Trafficking. New York: Zed Books, 2010. Print.