VOIR ET FAIRE VOIR LES GRAPHES DE RÉSEAUX PERSONNELS QUESTIONS D’ÉTHIQUE RÉFLEXIVE SUR LES EFFETS DES PROTOCOLES DE RECHERCHE

Personal network analysis studies an individual’s social relationships, and increasingly uses the visualization of these networks in fieldwork settings. However, seeing one’s personal network objectified in an image does not leave a person unchanged. Building on two different research protocols, this article discusses some of the reactions induced by the co-construction of the personal network using visualizations and examines the impacts of researcher-respondent interactions on the assimilation of results. The issues at stake are ethical, insofar as they concern the fate of others in the broadest sense, beyond compliance with formal rules. We harness reflexivity as a means of learning from our own research experiences, respectively in the fields of entrepreneurship and mental health. The article thus contributes to a wider debate on research ethics in sociology, which encompasses impacts and which, we believe, requires the active participation of researchers from the field.