How to Study What Is Not Talked About? Methodological Challenges of Sensitive Research in Sociology of Health and Medicine

Vollständiger Abstract

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In sociology, the sensitivity of research is often defined as a set of characteristics of certain empirical fields, or as ethical challenges that arise in the research process for both its participants and the researchers themselves. This paper proposes to consider the sensitivity of the field, including methodological difficulties and research solutions.The paper consists of research reflection of two empirical cases: a project devoted to the unwanted workplace interactions in Russian healthcare and a project devoted to the possibilities of molecular genetic testing for families affected by hereditary diseases and planning to have children. Both studies were conducted using a mix-method approach: online surveys and qualitative semi-structured interviews. In both cases, the topics studied can be considered conventionally sensitive, as they relate to intimate (including reproductive and sexual) experiences, experiences of violence and/or unwanted interactions, and, in part, psychologically traumatic experiences. However, we focus not on the ethical aspects of sensitivity, but rather on the ways it affects the ability to describe such experiences, to refer to established words and categories, and, as a result, on the very possibility of studying them using familiar sociological tools associated primarily with textual data. The work does not offer ready-made instructions for dealing with such methodological challenges, but invites readers to discuss how to study what is not talked about.