Mortality and the ethics of qualitative research in a context of HIV/AIDS

Abstract

Utilising the story of one man suffering' from HIV/AIDS, the article explores ethical relationship between researchers and an interlocutor over a two-year period in Okhahlamba, the Drakensberg—a remote region populated by Zulu-speakers. Drawing on the philosophical work of Emmanuel Levinas, and Alphonso Lingis, the paper argues for the importance of pre-empting too quick an understanding of illness and suffering, for allowing space for the ill to set the pace and the content of research relationship. Levinas' insistence on solicitude and responsibility in the presence of the vulnerability of the Other is linked to the ways researchers, in addition to being of practical assistance to an ill man, learnt through mutual interaction how to listen, how to remain silent, and how to suspend a particular approach when surprised by their interlocutor. The case study is placed within a context of widespread mourning and death.