Visual Research Ethics at the Crossroads

This paper provides an overview of the debates and practices that shape visual research ethics. We outline the requirements and expectations of institutional ethics review boards and legal frameworks, for example regarding filming and photographing in public and issues of copyright. We contend that legal and institutional requirements should not be the sole determinants when making decisions about ethics but rather must be situated within the research context
and accommodated in a researcher’s individual moral framework. We suggest that visual methods, and the data they produce, challenge some of the ethical practices associated with word and number based research, in particular around
informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality, and dissemination strategies. Overall, we argue that research ethics are contested, dynamic and contextual and as such, are best approached through detailed understanding of
the concrete, everyday situations in which they are applied. The title of this paper ‘visual ethics at the crossroads’ is metaphorical, indicating that visual research has reached an important juncture and signifying it is timely to take
stock and move in new direction.