Situating Vulnerability in Research: Implications for Researcher Transformation and Methodological Innovation

In their paper in this issue describing the challenges of conducting qualitative research with vulnerable families, Beth Easterling and Elizabeth Johnson (2015) have done us a service by drawing our attention to the complexities of research with justice- involved individuals and their family members. They focus on the strengths of phenomenological research methods, and challenges to gaining access to vulnerable populations. Perhaps the most unique contribution of their paper involves their suggestions regarding how best to bring a flexible and compassionate approach to the research process. I am greatly appreciative of their thoughtful efforts to study the incarcerated and their kin and advance family theory and methodology in this area. I would like to elaborate on two central issues I believe are related to Easterling and Johnson's paper: 1) the definition of vulnerability and what it implies and 2) how vulnerability impacts the research process. I believe, as demonstrated by Easterling and Johnson in terms of the care they took in conducting phenomenological interviews, working with vulnerable participants makes us better researchers and inspires creative and innovative methodology. Situating Vulnerability in Research Easterling and Johnson (2015) define vulnerable populations as groups requiring special accommodations, consideration and protections because of their vulnerable status. I would like to situate vulnerability as a factor that goes beyond the issue of whether an individual holds membership in a "protected class." How we define vulnerability is critical in developing responsive research practices and ultimately, empowering participants. Here I elaborate on issues pertaining to overprotection, social inequality, and marginalization. Overprotection can silence vulnerable participants. Vulnerable status implies several things beyond the need for special human subjects protections. First, the equating of vulnerability with the need for special human subjects protection suggests that prisoners, like children, lack capacity and are not in a position to "decide for themselves" (Moser et al., 2004). Hence human subjects protections might help in terms of protecting the imprisoned from coercion and ensuring their rights via informed consent, but also hurt by contributing to the preexisting barriers inherent in studying institutionalized populations. Institutional environments are closed and protected from view--a situation that can obviously equate with less coercion from outsiders but render individuals invisible and subject to coercion within the very institutions they reside. A spirit of "overprotection" may inadvertently make research so onerous that participation in the research process on the part of prisoners, or similar classes of vulnerable participants, is discouraged. This spirit of overprotection seems to be particularly obvious within the criminal justice system itself, in that researchers not only have to go through their respective universities for human subjects approval, but are also subject to state or federal institutional review and approval in order to gain access to secondary data or study participants. Review boards internal to the criminal justice system, which ideally are in place to enhance the research process and protect incarcerated persons, can also serve to obstruct the research process and increase the inaccessibility of offenders for outside research and programmatic efforts. Moreover, these same human subjects protections (e.g., informed consent) put in place for outside institutions that seek to conduct research, may not be utilized for research and assessment that is "in house" and conducted within prisons. In this manner, human subjects protections are inconsistently applied, may further serve to marginalize prisoners and their kin, and perpetuate their invisibility and silence. Human subjects provisions should clearly benefit the participant, ensure the trustworthiness and integrity of the research process, and also ensure participants have every opportunity to engage in research without coercion not only from both researchers, but from the institutions charged with their care or supervision. …