The Agathokakological Nature of Qualitative Research: Towards a Broader Research Ethics to Include Researcher Emotional Well-being

Abstract One of the strengths of qualitative research is its ability to immerse itself in the lived experience. However, when participants describe hardships, adversity, trauma, illness, loss, discrimination and other experiences, the relational depth that enables meaningful understanding can also evoke researchers' emotional needs. Research ethics has also evolved a wealth of precautions to ensure that the individual subject of the research is protected, but comparatively little attention has been paid to the emotional toll of the researcher's continued engagement with problem accounts. This conceptual paper proposes an expanded understanding of research ethics that acknowledges the researcher's emotional well-being as part of ethically responsible qualitative research. A critical narrative approach to embedding scholarship relevant to qualitative research ethics, reflexivity, emotional labour, researcher vulnerability and well-being. The paper builds on the notion of the agathokakological research encounter (the simultaneous presence of positive and challenging consequences for the relational encounter). It also provides a building block of cumulative emotional exposure to help describe how such consequences can be observed throughout the research lifecycle. The paper proposes that, in cases of reasonably foreseeable emotional exposure, the researcher's preparedness and well-being should be taken into account in ethical research design without compromising participant safety. Keywords: research ethics; researcher well-being; emotional exposure; emotional labour; reflexivity; cumulative emotional exposure; agathokakological research