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Part III. Digital Media and Storytelling in Research ] 119 The degree of publicity of such narratives can vary widely. Ihe Legacy of Ahmed project, for example, used oral history to explore the lives of the Muslim community in Britain. In one of the narratives, the female narrator mentioned that she used to drink alcohol, and after the interview, she was so frightened by the material being made public and the resulting potential ostracism that she banned access to the material for 25 years (Niblett g Vickers, 2019). Leavy (2011) notes that in oral history research, the researcher has to inform the narrators that the researcher is a participant observer and part of the interview process. It is also crucial that narrators are fully informed about howlong the process will take and how the publication will take place. The narrators should also be informed about the personal or community (e.g., educational, traditional, or testimonial) benefits that they will derive from the process. In all participatory narrative research, care should be taken that the researcher does not completely cut off contact with the participants after the research has been completed. In the case of sensitive topics, participants may become re-traumatized and reguire a psychological follow-up. In particular, the co-creative nature of art-based action research raises ethical issues regarding individual creation and participation. In particular, the framework for the storing and processing of sensitive personal data, the (re)use of external resources, and group communication raise ethical and in some cases legal guestions. According to Lanszki and Horváth (2017), the consideration of ethical issues starts at the planning stage of the process, when the facilitator defines the participants and the workshop topic. Ihe authors point out that the selection of group members should exclude people with a psychotic illness or recent experiences of severe trauma unless the program is specifically aimed at them and a psychologist is involved as a co-facilitator. Lanszki and Horvath also emphasize that although the workshop topic may be divisive, it should never be about ethically reprehensible actions and ideas (e.g., animal cruelty, extreme political ideologies, etc.). It is important to lay down the rules of communication at the beginning of the workshop; for example, aesthetic value judgments are forbidden in group sessions. The facilitator’s role is cardinal in establishing assertive communication, and participants should be aware that the facilitator moderates the process in case insults arise. The self-reflection of the facilitator is also of utmost importance, as he or she may influence the group dynamics and even the development of the stories if the facilitator’s identity, beliefs, and socio-cultural background become too dominant in the communication. Whether narrative arts-based participatory methods are applied in education or as a research method, it must be taken into account that a central element of the process is that participants actively and repetitively verbalize their own experiences, both orally and in writing, and that they find and revisit old
