Standard contributions to this discussion stressed the importance of not engaging in unethical behaviors, such as "coercing subjects to participate or neglecting to get informed consent from them; exploiting or abusing them in the course of research; violating their privacy or breaching confidentiality.
"[5] This advocacy can take many forms, but is characterized by its impulse to somehow give back to the community that the researcher is studying.
It can also be valuable to use "'feedback' techniques," wherein the researcher maintains communication with the informants throughout the process to ensure that they consent to the ways they are being represented in the final presentation of results.
Ben Rampton used 'feedback' techniques in his study of Asian schoolboys,[6] and Norma Mendoza-Denton also did in her work with Californian cholas' views on makeup.
[7] These questions of advocacy also have larger implications, namely in a critique of the positivist methods generally used for research in the social sciences.