Join us on Thursday 26th February for this month's TASA Thursday Postgraduate Session:Researching Sensitive Topics: Ethics, Care, and Boundaries hosted by Larney Peerenboom on behalf of the Postgraduate Sub-Committee, with panellists Dr Laura Simpson Reeves and Dr Joel Hollier.
Sociological research often involves close engagement with people, communities, institutions, and forms of social harm. For postgraduate researchers and early career researchers, this can raise ethical questions that extend beyond formal ethics approval and require ongoing judgement in research practice.
This TASA Thursday session invites sociology HDRs and ECRs to reflect on how ethical complexity is navigated in qualitative research. The discussion will explore questions of care, responsibility, and boundary-setting in research relationships, as well as the emotional and ethical labour involved in sociological research. Speakers will reflect on how ethical decisions emerge during fieldwork, analysis, and writing, and how researchers manage their own wellbeing while maintaining analytical rigour.
The session is intended as a reflective and practical conversation for sociology postgraduates and early career researchers working with qualitative data, sensitive topics, or ethically complex research settings.
Event Details:
Date: Thursday 26th February 2026
Time: 12:30pm - 13:30pm (AEDT)
Format: Zoom Webinar
Webinar
Cost: complimentary
Your Speakers
Dr Laura Simpson Reeves (UQ)
Dr Laura Simpson Reeves is a Research Fellow in the School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Social Work at The University of Queensland, and a Research Fellow with the Life Course Centre. She is a highly experienced qualitative social researcher with a strong background across the social sciences and humanities. Her research broadly aims to understand social and cultural responses to inequity and disadvantage, with a strong focus on lived experience. Laura works with vulnerable and marginalised groups at the nexus of culture and disadvantage, especially around ethnicity, gender and sexuality, poverty, and experiences of exclusion and discrimination. She has a particular focus and interest in diaspora and issues around belonging, identity, acculturation, and social cohesion/isolation. Her current research explores family inclusion and children's voices, especially in relation to child protection.
Dr Joel Hollier (University of Sydney)
Dr Joel Hollier is a postdoctoral research fellow in the University of Sydney's faculty of Medicine and Health. His research explores the intersections of mental health, queer identities, spirituality, and social policy. He is the author of "Religious Trauma, Queer Identities" (Palgrave) and has recently co-edited the book "Understanding Spirituality and the Sacred in Social Work Practice: Spirited Conversations". He is passionate about creating safer spaces for LGBTQIA+ people to explore spirituality, co-founding New City Church, Sydney and co-convening the Future Church Conference.