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This paper discusses the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on research ethics in social sciences by focusing on the concept of vulnerability. We unpack the current conceptualisations of vulnerability and their limitations and argue for the need to reconceptualise vulnerability as multidimensional, consisting of both universal and contextual dimensions, as well as their dynamic interplay. Multidimensional vulnerability is inspired by and relevant to social science research during the pandemic but can also be useful in other contexts such as climate change or conflict. The paper puts forwards several considerations about how this revised concept of vulnerability may be useful when evaluating ethical dimensions of social science research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Articulating the complexities of relational wellbeing can be challenging at the best of times, and even more complex during periods of heightened stress and uncertainty. Taking inspiration from feminist materialisms and recent writings on material methods, we explore the potential of object interviews to reveal the material-discursive dimensions of women's experiences of wellbeing during the pandemic. In this paper we describe our research process conducting object interviews with 38 women living in Aotearoa New Zealand from a range of socio-economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. We explore the potential and challenges of object interviews for surfacing new ways of knowing (theoretically, methodologically, and cross-culturally) wellbeing beyond human-oriented health, medical and social-constructionist models, and towards more multidimensional and relational understandings. This paper offers our reflections and learnings about the process of re-turning object interviews and the potential of such approaches for evoking complex ways of knowing wellbeing during and beyond pandemic times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and applies a methodology of qualitative inquiry that equips researchers to capture how social actors produce and contest accepted forms of knowledge at the margins of mainstream globalizing discourses in times of crisis. Standing at the intersection between conceptual and empirical research, our methodology builds on the common epistemological premises of 'narrative', as stories constructed and enacted in social life, and 'practice', as tasks and projects composed by 'doings' and 'sayings'. Overcoming the dualism between 'action' and 'discourse' in traditional social theory, this methodology integrates narrative theory and practice theory into a joint framework for fieldwork and interviews. The use of the narrative-practice methodology in ethnographic case studies – such as interpreters' experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in Qatar – allows researchers to gain analytical granularity on participants' storied practice and practiced stories of the crisis, to harness 'peripheral' knowledge and refashion public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]