Problemy badań terenowych – wybrane kwestie metodologiczne, praktyczne oraz etyczne przy badaniu zjawisk „trudnych”
Problems in field work/field studies – chosen methodological, practical and ethical issues in exploring “difficult” phenomena

Summary/Abstract: The most interesting social phenomena are usually difficult to access for a researcher. Different problems in such research projects appear every step a researcher take: reliability and credibility of informants, choosing a right research method, having insufficient knowledge about the subject. All these factors can cause that a researcher has not enough control over research process. Sometimes a researcher might not even be able to conduct everything he/she planned (e.g. he/she will be refused to conduct research in a total institution or the informants will not be willing to share pieces of information which are harmful for themselves). Quantitative methods are usually of no use in exploring such phenomena. Their complexity, specifics cause that researchers use qualitative methods. Choosing these methods does not mean that a researcher can avoid difficult decisions whilst doing the field work – it can happen that the last source of reference is researcher’s intuition and experience in field work. What are the ways of conducting research on closed or excluded groups, total institutions, specific professional groups, local communities or the phenomena that cause ethical doubts: actions ‘behind the scenes’ or other covert activity involving corruption or conflict of interest? What are the difficulties and problems we can expect? In my paper I present examples of different research on phenomena that are difficult to investigate.

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