Researcher’s Dilemmas and Emotional Labour Challenges in Qualitative Research

Abstract

This article examines the challenges that researchers encounter in relation to power dynamics and emotional labour at various stages of research. Drawing on the personal experience of conducting qualitative interviews with self-help teachers in Lithuania, the article reveals that the unpredictability of power dynamics between researchers and participants can lead to ethical dilemmas and threaten researchers’ emotional security. It argues that researchers’ emotional exhaustion can stem not only from empathy with participants’ vulnerability, but also from direct challenges to their own beliefs and values, inducing internal dissonance. It highlights the important role of academic communities and institutional support in ensuring the emotional safety of researchers and asserts that self-reflection practices contribute not only to research quality but also help researchers to navigate the internal emotional tensions that arise during the research process.