Project
Becomings
engage · learn · reimagine · grow
Reimagining recovery narratives following adversity
Ethics, Care And Participation
Approaching ethics as an ongoing practice of care, choice and responsibility throughout the research.
Ethics as an Ongoing Practice
Research involving experiences of childhood trauma requires careful ethical consideration. Project Becomings received formal ethical approval and included established processes for informed consent, confidentiality, safeguarding and managing potential distress.
But the ethical responsibilities of the research could not be fully anticipated or resolved through procedures agreed before the project began. Ethical questions continued to emerge through the research itself — through relationships, creative practices, conversations, unexpected moments and decisions about what happened next.
This was particularly important within a participatory project. As co-researchers became involved in shaping the research, circumstances changed and new questions emerged. Something somebody had initially agreed to might later feel different. A creative work could unexpectedly reveal something deeply personal. An activity could affect people differently from what had been anticipated. Decisions about what could be shared publicly also developed as the project moved towards exhibition.
Ethics therefore became an ongoing and relational practice. It involved paying attention to what was happening within particular encounters, remaining responsive to changing circumstances and continually considering the possible consequences of research decisions.
This did not replace formal ethical procedures. Rather, it recognised their limits. Ethical approval provided an important framework, while ethical practice required continuing care, judgement, reflexivity and responsibility throughout the research.
Choice, Consent & Control
Consent in Project Becomings was understood as more than agreeing to take part at the beginning of the research.
Exploring trauma and recovery through conversation and creative practice could produce things that were difficult to anticipate in advance. A co-researcher might feel comfortable beginning an activity but later want to stop. They might create something they wanted to discuss within the group but did not want shared more widely. What felt acceptable at one point in the research could also change over time.
Choice therefore needed to remain available throughout participation.
Co-researchers could make decisions about how they participated, what they disclosed and what they chose not to share. Creative approaches also provided different possibilities for expression rather than requiring every experience to be translated into spoken or written accounts.
This became particularly important as creative works moved beyond the original research setting. Creating something within research did not automatically mean consenting for it to become public. Decisions about whether and how work could be included within Project Becomings required further consideration and agreement.
Maintaining choice also meant recognising that saying “no”, “not now” or “I don't want to share this” could be meaningful exercises of agency rather than failures to participate.
Consent was therefore approached as something that needed to remain active, responsive and revisitable, particularly as the research and relationships within it developed.
Care, Safety And Trauma-Informed Research
Researching experiences connected with trauma can involve difficult, emotional or unexpected moments. Project Becomings therefore considered care and safety as part of how the research was designed and practised, rather than assuming that these could be managed only if something went wrong.
This began before participation. Eligibility criteria were developed alongside the partner organisation's safeguarding lead, and co-researchers had already received a period of therapeutic support from the organisation. These decisions were intended to consider whether participation was appropriate and to support the safety and wellbeing of those taking part.
Within the research itself, a trauma-informed approach meant recognising the importance of choice, trust, relationships, boundaries and different ways of participating. Co-researchers were not required to disclose traumatic experiences in order for their knowledge about recovery to be valuable.
Creative activities also required particular care. Materials and making could enable experiences to be explored beyond words, but they could also produce unexpected sensations, memories or emotions. The researcher therefore needed to remain attentive to what was happening within the encounter, rather than assuming that a creative activity was automatically safe or therapeutic.
Importantly, care did not mean removing all discomfort or treating survivors as fragile. Difficult conversations, uncertainty and emotionally powerful encounters could be meaningful parts of participation. The ethical responsibility was to create conditions in which co-researchers retained choice and agency in how they responded to those moments.
A trauma-informed research environment was therefore not about guaranteeing that nothing difficult would happen. It was about how difficulty was anticipated, responded to and held within the relationships and structures of the research.
Power, Reciprocity And Responsibility
Participatory research seeks to challenge the idea that researchers should hold all the expertise and decision-making power. Within Project Becomings, the lived and experiential knowledge of co-researchers was therefore treated as knowledge in its own right, rather than simply information for the researcher to interpret.
But describing research as participatory does not automatically make relationships equal.
The researcher still occupied a particular position within the project. They held responsibilities connected with the university, ethical approval, safeguarding, the research design and ultimately the doctoral study itself. Co-researchers and the researcher therefore brought different forms of knowledge, power and responsibility into the research.
Rather than pretending these differences disappeared, the research required ongoing attention to how power was operating: Who could make decisions? Whose knowledge was being valued? Who determined what became research knowledge? Who benefited from participation? And who carried responsibility when difficult decisions had to be made?
Reciprocity became important within this. Participation should not simply involve people giving their experiences, time and knowledge to a researcher in exchange for little in return. Relationships, opportunities for learning, creative practice, shared experiences and the development of the exhibition created possibilities for research to involve forms of exchange rather than functioning only through extraction.
Reciprocity, however, did not mean that every exchange could or should be equal. Nor did it remove the researcher's responsibility. Instead, it required continual consideration of what was being given, received and made possible through the relationships of the research.
This meant approaching power and reciprocity not as problems that could be permanently solved, but as ethical questions requiring continued attention, reflexivity and accountability.
The Ethics Of Making Research Public
Moving research about trauma and recovery into a public space created a different set of ethical questions.
Creative works made during Project Becomings could contain deeply personal experiences, meanings and connections. Sharing something within a research group was therefore not treated as automatic permission for that work to be shared publicly.
As the Project Becomings exhibition developed, questions of consent, privacy, ownership and control remained important. Co-researchers needed opportunities to consider what they wanted others to encounter, what context might accompany their work and what they preferred to keep private.
Creative research also creates particular ethical complexities because an artwork does not always reveal its meaning in obvious ways. Something that appears abstract to one person may hold intensely personal significance for its maker. Equally, once work enters a public space, the researcher and co-researcher cannot completely control how another person will interpret or respond to it.
Making the research public therefore required attention not only to whether something could be shared, but how it was shared, with whom and under what conditions.
The exhibition also raised questions about responsibility towards visitors. Trauma-related material can provoke unexpected responses, particularly for people bringing their own experiences into the space. Decisions about presentation, information and opportunities for choice therefore formed part of thinking ethically about the public encounter.
Rather than seeing dissemination as something that happened once the ethical work of research was finished, Project Becomings recognised that moving knowledge into public spaces created new relationships — and therefore new ethical responsibilities.