This study identifies some of the ethical issues that arise in the everyday practice of researching in collecting interactional data. A form of conceptualizing ethics in research is proposed as awareness of the social dimension of research practices and their transformative nature. The collection of ethnographic data—including interviewing, observing, audiovisual recording, and other methods—is achieved by means of social interactions that necessarily imply issues of face, relevance, appropriateness, politeness, and identity, to name a few. Research activities have an impact on (...) both the setting and the participants in the study, in fact, they become part of the setting studied. At times, participants may be using the research activity for their own ends. It is important for researchers to be aware of and responsible for the impact they have on the setting under study. Some ethical problems encountered conducting actual research activities are discussed as an illustration: issues related to negotiation of consent in semipublic settings and to the protection of informants’ anonymity. The actual resolution of these problems is presented as research findings from the everyday practice of doing research. Systematic reflection on the social and interactional dimension of how ethical decisions are taken during actual research activities could make legislation on the protection of research participants and ethical guidelines more realistic and useful. (shrink)

Using conversation analysis, this study investigates how Japanese rehabilitation team members use their geographic knowledge to search for long-term care facilities for stroke survivors in multidisciplinary team interactions. The study uncovers the orderly use of decision rules during discharge planning activities by exploring the following two questions: What decision criteria are discursively used? In what order are the criteria handled through sequential operations? The data comprise 65 video-recorded rehabilitation team meetings and ethnographic information regarding local care facilities and patients’ residential (...) addresses. The analysis shows that the participants deal with decision criteria in an orderly manner. They identify the type of facility and location preferred by the patient’s family and search for a facility accordingly. Moreover, they routinely select facilities closer to the patients’ and their families’ homes. However, these rules are modified if the family’s choice is inappropriate, or when a facility in a different location is preferred by the family. The study contributes to the conversation analytic understanding of interprofessional decision making and prioritization through the analysis of orderly methods of search procedures interactively accomplished by participants in ongoing medical team interactions. (shrink)

Using Harvey Sacks’s concept of membership categorization devices, this article examines the help-search sequences in which Japanese rehabilitation team members use a set of categories to locate the availability of stroke family caregivers. Specifically, based on an analysis of audiovisual data from rehabilitation team conferences in Japan, the article illustrates the ways in which participants at the meetings: evaluate the expectable behaviors of various category incumbents; classify which category of person is proper to turn to for help; and arrive at (...) the conclusion that no one is available, and so the patient must be institutionalized. Analysis shows that participants routinely choose co-resident family members to fulfill the caregiver position. However, the position is not guaranteed unless the selected incumbent can satisfy additional criteria, especially physical strength and time availability. By exploring the ways in which participants use categories to negotiate discharge destinations, the article adds to Sacks’s analysis by illustrating methodical activities for deciding whether someone is unavailable to help. Moreover, it considers the applicability of Sacks’s notion of MCDs to Japanese data. (shrink)

This paper analyzes four instances in talk of generalization about people, that is, of using statements about one or more people as the basis of stating something about a category. Generalization can be seen as a categorization practice which involves a reflexive relationship between the generalized-from person or people and the generalized-to category. One thing that is accomplished through generalization is instruction in how to understand the identity of the generalized-from person or people, so in addition to being understood as (...) a practice of categorization, generalization can also be understood as a practice of identification. Somewhat incidentally, this paper also illustrates the importance of certain methodological issues related to membership categorization analysis and contributes to the growing body of work that connects membership categorization analysis with sequential conversation analysis. (shrink)