Ethics at home: informed consent in your own backyard

Keying off of a “fully informed consent letter” that consists of the text of her original letter to participants interspersed with insights gained after-the-fact, the author explores ethical and institutional power issues that arose as she conducted a qualitative research study in her home institution – her own “backyard” – and offers a critical examination of the concept of “informed consent,” calling for a radical revision of the standard notions of research ethics that blur ethical sensibilities.