Researching the margins: Strategies for ethical and rigorous research with marginalised communities

Book Review: Conducting ethical and rigorous research to document health inequalities among marginalised populations is particularly difficult, especially when those populations may be seen as politically contentious. In the editors’ words, ‘Researching the margins’ is “a book about how to be a researcher with marginalised communities rather than a book about how to do research”. Undoubtedly the book achieves this aim. Through a series of case studies, the book discusses a number of challenges faced by those researching the margins. These challenges include definitional problems (e.g. who is in the margins and who is in the centre? Who is the researcher and the researched?), ethical problems (e.g. confidentiality and anonymity, payment to participants), operational problems (e.g. developing research questions, sampling and recruitment), and political considerations (e.g. reporting politically sensitive findings).

Publication Date: 
2008
Editor(s): 
Pitts, Marian
Smith, Anthony
Pages: 
194
Volume: 
32
Issue: 
2
Journal Name: 
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health
Location: 
Australia; New Zealand