Confidentiality in qualitative research: reflections on secrets, power and agency

Abstract

This article makes a philosophical case for recharacterizing confidentiality in qualitative research from static notions of harm and privacy to one that accounts for a critical agency which exposes, subverts and redefines oppressive social structures. Confidentiality protects secrecy, which hinders transformative political action. Transformative political action requires that researchers and respondents consider themselves involved in a process of exposing and resisting hegemonic power arrangements, but such action is thwarted by secrecy and the methods used to protect it. This article suggests that in order for qualitative research to be transformative the convention of confidentiality must be questioned.