Abstract

Anonymity and confidentiality feature prominently in research ethics guidelines. In this chapter we draw on examples from a research ethics application for a project involving women who had extricated themselves from relationships in which they had experienced intimate partner violence, and an ethnographic study of cross-dressing and drag, to illustrate the multiple ways in which identity masking can be put to work, both promoting and undermining what it means to do ethical research. We argue that the requirement for anonymity and confidentiality cannot be assessed without taking into account historicity and the sociopolitical contexts in which a study and its participants are located. The chapter concludes by giving consideration to the potential of a situated ethics approach and the implications for ethics review processes.