Když výzkum, tak skrytý: serpentinami formalizované etiky

We present a discussion of the ethical and practical problems related to participative research on power relations in contemporary societies. The discussion is based upon our experience in two seemingly different fields: the central bureaucratic institutions overseeing and producing an expanding security agenda, and the homeless in a middle-sized town. Exploring the similarities between the ethical and methodological problems encountered during our research, and attempting to compare the strategies we used to overcome them, we argue that the ever-growing disciplinary complex of formalized procedures, codes and rules of ethical research may represent some of the core obstacles preventing meaningful (and ethical) activity within the research field. Formalized ethics may thus be interpreted as a functional part of the gatekeeping infrastructure prohibiting critical research on contemporary power relations.