Going beyond procedure: Engaging with the ethical complexities of being an embedded researcher

This article is a reflection upon the ethical dimension of my work and practice as an embedded researcher during my doctorate. To begin with, I describe my experiences of gaining ethical approval from The University of Manchester while also highlighting some of the concerns that were raised by the ethics board. This leads me to recognise how the inflexibility of such procedures are problematic for more unusual doctoral arrangements, such as embedded research. I then go on to engage with some of the real ethical complexities that I was forced to deal with as an embedded researcher. Here, I am mostly concerned with issues of positionality. From this, I identify the importance of developing ethical procedures to enable researchers to more fully engage with the ethics of their practice. Thus, I argue that in order to go beyond ethical approval functioning as a mere procedure or formality, the process needs to be developed so that doctoral students may be fully prepared to deal with the ethical issues they may face in the field. Finally, in light of the potential for embedded research to be an increasingly popular way to fund doctoral research, I recognise that such changes are particularly crucial as such students (due to their inexperience) may be unequipped to deal with the challenges that their position may bring.