Dilemmas of care in online interviewing

This chapter explores a fictionalised case of interviewing participants for a qualitative research project that was hastily redesigned after the COVID-19 outbreak, adapting from face-to-face unstructured interviews in public spaces to using an online meeting app. Whilst online tools have enabled research to continue during lockdowns, the experience of conducting interviews online is very different to a face-to-face interview – in terms of ethics, there are positives, such as risk management and researcher safety. However, there are also some challenges in terms of an ethic of care for participants, who are distant and can end the call at any time, with no mechanism for checking their well-being. Should extra safeguards and guidance be put place for these activities to take place online? Our fictional researchers, Jo and Femi negotiate ethical dilemmas, then we explore alternative actions that could have been taken.