Public lecture: Research ethics & small communities

Institute of Culture, Language & History at Ilisimatusarfik invites you all to a public lecture titled "Research ethics & small communities" with Associate Professor Erika Anne Hayfield from University of the Faroe Islands.

This lecture addresses two key issues that are intimately connected: social relations in small communities and situational research ethics.

Situational research ethics refers to the everyday ethical moments of research - often subtle, relational, and unpredictable - which are not easily anticipated or prescribed through formal research ethics codes.

By contrast, procedural research ethics typically takes the form of institutional guidelines and codes, often grounded in Western individualist assumptions.

Such frameworks are frequently developed outside the social sciences and shaped by research contexts where anonymity is taken for granted, particularly in large urban settings.

Procedural research ethics codes often fail to account for the realities of small communities, where multiple overlapping relationships, social interdependency and intimacy shape both formal and informal everyday life.

In this lecture, Erika will discuss how social and familial relations - and the experience of "everybody knowing everyone" - can influence the relational dynamics of research, especially qualitative research.

She also explores situational research ethics through themes such as consent, confidentiality, harm, trust, culture and power.

In doing so, she challenges conventional understandings of research ethics and highlight the importance of ethical alertness and cultural sensitivity in small-scale contexts.

Bio

Erika Anne Hayfield is Associate Professor of Social Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of History and Social Sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands.

Her research is situated within island studies and centres on social relations in small island communities, with particular attention to how intimacy, interconnectedness and visibility shape everyday life in such contexts.

A central strand of her work focuses on research ethics in small communities, where proximity and overlapping roles create distinctive methodological and ethical challenges.

She has published on qualitative research ethics in island contexts, is Chair of the Research Ethics Committee at the University of the Faroe Islands and teaches research ethics at master’s and PhD level. Her PhD examined children’s cultures of consumption using an ethnographic approach in schools.

Building on this foundation, her research explores migration, mobilities, gender and labour markets in island societies, including work on gendered labour mobilities, young people’s outmigration, and the experiences of immigrants in small-scale island communities.