Ethical Considerations for Studying Human Trafficking Tania E. DoCarmo Contents Methods and Research Design ................................................................... 2 Negotiating Access ............................................................................... 5 The Researcher ’ s Position ........................................................................ 9 Data Collection ................................................................................... 12 Representation .................................................................................... 15 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 16 Cross-References ................................................................................. 16 References ........................................................................................ 17 Abstract This chapter outlines ethical considerations for doing research on human traf- ficking. It presents ethical challenges not only for interacting with and studying the experiences of trafficked persons and their communities but also for describ- ing, explaining, and presenting trafficking as a social problem more generally. An ethical approach to trafficking research includes giving considerable thought to how a study is designed, ethically negotiating access to respondents, being honest about how the researcher ’ s social position and emotional reactions to respondents in the field will impact findings, and being diligent about recognizing ethical conundrums as they arise. The chapter begins with how researchers might consider the ethical implications of their research design, negotiate access, and address their positionality. It then turns to practical suggestions for trauma- informed and culturally sensitive data collection, in addition to guidelines for ethically representing and disseminating findings. T. E. DoCarmo (*) University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA e-mail: tdocarmo@uci.edu © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Winterdyk, J. Jones (eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook of Human Trafficking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63192-9_8-1 1