The Methodology of the Study as an Ethical Choice

As the above described suggest, a qualitative research approach forms a methodological basis for the study under construction. The qualitative research has come to being as a critic toward the quantitative approach and is linked to a debate between positivism and postpositivism.

The critics against postpositivism and the qualitative studies goes that they aren’t able to indicate the causation. The argument for this is that when the starting variable isn’t reliably known, the outcome couldn’t be proved to be in causation to starting variable. This critic is in accordance with the value-free science and positivism more broadly.

The value-free science is a concept developed by Max Weber. A central requirement of the concept is to demerge subjective values and objective science. For Weber this appear as a technical matter: The value-free science is included to the relation of the scientific tools and the outcomes of science. According to Weber, the responsibility of a scientist requires the admittance of the fact that a scientist is in response only to science. On the other hand, he thought that science

14 as such doesn’t have a social responsibility. Rather, the good of science results from the general regularities which apply to all human beings, as positivism suggests. (Social Science 2008) In contrast, I think that it isn’t reasonable to demerge subjective values and objective outcomes. Human beings aren’t measurable objects which means that objective observation doesn’t suit well to the social science. Rather than that, the treatment of the social science as value-free would lead a scientist to target his studies to community without a hint of the relevance of studies. In my view, the difficulties of the recognition of the relevance of studies occurs through negations as exclusive formations in communication. Accordingly, the negation-free science would help to recognize relevancies.

As this suggests, a science policy can be seen as a fundamental part of social science. It’s important for the credibility of a scientist to take a stance to the subjective values which determine his and his studies position in the field of science. This isn’t important only for the relevance of studies but also for accountability and transparency. The problem is that a scientific research can’t be made in a politico-ethical vacuum.

On the contrary, I argue that it would be a dangerous approach to demerge politics and ethics. In practice, this would leave out relevant data and, on the other hand, hide the motives and an agenda of a scientist. Thus, it’s ironic that positivism criticize postpositivism for the doing of research in such a vacuum. However, I argue that this is so due to differences in used terminology.

It’s characteristic for positivism to highlight values such as reliability, validity, and generalizability which suits bad for the postpositivist and qualitative studies. The above mentioned values are supposed to ensure neutrality, predictability, and universality of science regardless of which they aren’t adoptable to the qualitative studies as such. Values such as reliability, validity, and generalizability require reliable and exact specification whereas the obscurity of the qualitative studies is the biggest reason why positivism criticize the qualitative studies and which makes it an exact science.

15 Nevertheless, there have been parities in develop within the qualitative studies. Among these, there are the requirements for the falsification, transferability, and the outcomes of studies.

In other words, a scientific theory or a model should be abatable in principle as well as it should be verifiable. On the other hand, I argue that the falsification and transferability decides over the relevancy of theories and the study results.

A relevancy is one of the most important principle among qualitative studies. In practice, it means that a study should serve primarily the purpose of the target. Conversely, it shouldn’t base on the interest of a scientist any more than it should base on the interest of a sponsor or other stakeholder. This principle implies the responsibility of consultation with the target of a study.

For example, for this study relevant ‘Ethical principles for the conduct of research in the North’, underlines the requirement of consultation with communities where studies are directed at. According to these principles a scientist should, in other words, study the local cultures, traditions, and communities as well as take possible feedback into account.

It’s clear that these consultative relationships make scientists vulnerable toward lobbying. The requirement of objectivity insists a scientist to recognize these attempts to gain space for agendas of indigenous peoples own. This is one of the reasons why a scientist has to know local cultures, traditions and communities for their appropriate part.

Nowadays the indigenous communities throughout the Arctic aren’t passive targets of studies. Instead, they participate actively to planning, reporting, funding, and licensing of studies which raise the responsibility of a scientist to ensure that these roles doesn’t give an opportunity to influence on study results. For this reason, a good scientific practice presumes a scientist to make his linkage known.

For example, in this study the data compose a content and interviews which are ultimately made for commercial purpose. Although the second of those commercial parties is completely owned by The Cook Inlet Tribal Council and the licensed story is based on Inupiat

16 tradition, the purpose of the resulted video game is primarily to make profit despite of an interest to make Inupiat culture familiar and transmit it to the younger generations.

These kinds of conflict of interests are quite typical for qualitative studies and it’s needless to say that they should be taken into account also methodologically. On these days, an increasingly common way to do this is a methodological triangulation which is adopted on this study as well. Simply put, this refer to a use of multiple methods in combination for ensuring objectivity and transferability of the study results.

However, a consultation is a useful tool also for a scientist: Whereas indigenous communities get an opportunity to affect studies concerning themselves, a scientist gets an opportunity to test hypothesis and new standpoints to study as well as a possibility to broaden study results to cover a wider field.