Situated ethics in investigating non-government organisations and showgrounds : issues in researching Japanese environmental politics and Australian traveller education

Situated ethics (Piper & Simons, 2005; Simons & Usher, 2000) provides a potentially powerful conceptual lens for reflecting on the research significance and researcher subjectivities entailed in contemporary educational research projects. This is the idea that research ethics is most appropriately understood and enacted in the specific contexts of such projects, rather than by reference to timeless and universal codes. This proposition is helpful in drawing attention to the crucial networks of aspirations and interests that bind and separate stakeholders in those projects.