Ethical Dilemmas in Current Ethnology Vol. III.

The contributions demonstrate that ethical dilemmas cannot be reduced to compliance with formal procedures or professional codes, but rather emerge throughout the entire research process—from gaining access to the field of study and building relationships with research partners to interpretation, representation, publication, and the subsequent circulation of knowledge. Drawing on research on living heritage governance, housing precarity, and marginalised Roma communities, the authors critically reflect on researcher positionality, multiple professional roles, power asymmetries, participation, epistemic justice, reciprocity, confidentiality, and the risks of representing vulnerable or stigmatised groups. The volume also broadens the discussion beyond relationships between researchers and participants by addressing more-than-human actors in living heritage and the institutional structures of academic publishing. Particular attention is paid to the tension between normative ethical frameworks and the complexity of situated research practice. Taken together, the contributions advocate an understanding of research ethics as a reflexive, relational, and context-sensitive practice grounded in ongoing responsibility for the people, communities, institutions, and forms of knowledge involved in research.