Re-thinking vulnerability: Research fraud and bureaucratic harm in community-engaged online research

Vulnerability – understood broadly as susceptibility to harm – factors into many social science research projects, including those that are qualitative, involve collaborations between scholars and members of the group under study, and engage with online research techniques and technologies. However, guidance for how researchers and communities may understand, navigate, and mitigate vulnerability in such projects is often scattered across disciplines, making it difficult for researchers to discern relevant best practices. To further understandings of vulnerability here, we reflect in this article on our experience with a mixed-method project, where we partnered with sex workers across the United States to study their experiences with the online platforms they use to facilitate and conduct their work. Based on our encounters with university bureaucracies and research fraud over the course of this project, we argue broadly that vulnerability is not a fixed, inherent attribute of certain research participants; instead, it emerges through various relations and events in the field, and all parties involved in a research project may experience it. To illustrate this argument, we demonstrate how university bureaucratic practices and research fraud may variously harm both participants and researchers by undermining community collaborations, data collection, and researcher safety and well-being. In conclusion we suggest best practices for online research and for universities, so they may better protect researchers and the integrity of such studies.