Just when I thought Academia couldn't sink any lower.

[Imnobody4]

Not just a PhD in wanking, but a peer-reviewed paper on masturbating to images of young boys. Published in "Qualitative Methods". t.co/L3MnSkYQFN

twitter.com/ProfAliceS/status/1556584749447143425?t=v_5NNIZDXKNzFbMBZxWsfQ&s=19

How did this get past Manchester University's ethics process @OfficialUoM ? Masturbating to images of children and writing it up for public consumption does not seem ethical to me. This is hugely disturbing.

Actually I'm speechless.

So depending how much she knew, you may have a problem at Manchester. But the real gatekeepers here were the editorial board of Qualitative Research. Unusually for a high profile broad subject journal, they're all from a single university - Cardiff.

Well this is worrying. Our new pro vice chancellor is from Cardiff. It's a niche university that focuses on engineering and management. A search of the intranet confirmed we are aligned with stonewall. There hasn't been a push but an increasing number of staff are using pronouns. I'm all for LGB support but I was recently irritated to learn that a make marketing exec has decided he's non-binary and changed his name to one I've never heard of. Enjoying all of the privileges of presenting as a man while claiming he isn't and demanding I refer to him as they/them.

Dang, I was going to do my PhD on cannibalism (entitled ‘how do you like your legs, fried or boiled?’!’)

Urgh. The shame of this. What the hell is going on at the universities in my capital city??

I do think Prof Alice Sullivan’s comment ‘ ‘Wanking is not a research method. It’s just wanking’ is exactly the feedback Karl Andersson should have got from his peer reviewers.

I commend you for the strong Goldsmiths, "How to cater when holidaying and being re-educated in the gulag" vibe.

tbh, my preference is, "Fully functioning and wholly attached to me" but I have the feeling that my preference wouldn't be consulted…

More do the point, doing anything and writing up some diaries isn't a research method.

Tim Gill
@timgill924
I’m about to eat a big-ass burrito at the Miami Airport. Following which, I plan to publish my finding in The Qualitative Review.

I just wonder how this got ethics approval?

It isn't clear when he did the "research".

If he wasn't affiliated with an institution, no co-authors on the paper, no participants recruited, no secondary data applied for...I guess it's possible he didn't actually apply?

It's not something that was buried in the paper that a reviewer should have picked up but missed.

I agree with that 1blossomtree but I think the article's publication suggests that there must be some academics in this field who don't think what the author did was wrong. Peer review forms usually ask reviewers to comment on the ethics of a submission or give them an opportunity to pass on confidential comments to the editor. I was trying to say - perhaps not clearly enough - that procedures were in place which should have ensured the submission was rejected, or at least flagged as controversial. I'm assuming from the COPE statement that they had not been consulted before publication.

As others have pointed out, it was published online a few months ago. Why did it take so long for this to have been questioned? It suggests to me that some of the journal's readers did not think it was ethically and methodologically dubious.

His current PhD hasn't got ethics approval...he talked about it in one of his videos

The subject matter aside his research method (autoethnograohy) is a valid research method in the humanities/qualitative research.

That being said it really makes you wonder how he got admitted to a funded PhD given the subject matter. 😨

The subject matter aside his research method (autoethnograohy) is a valid research method in the humanities/qualitative research.

I think it's considered pretty low quality, even in humanties research @SarahProblem? (When not about wanking!)

And even so, I would be suprised if his manuscript was considered robust by researchers who do use autoethnography - methods weren't clear, seemed very rambling, no talk about positionality etc.

Yes agree @nettie434

Would be interested to know how many readers this journal tends to have (IF is low, only around 4), and how many academics are likely to have read the paper and not been horrified. It didn't get much traction at the time - no one in his field retweeted it, certainly no reactions by any "big names" in whatever he classes as his subject area.

I believe it was a non-humanties researcher who brought it to everyone's attention.

A PhD would have to go through several steps just to be accepted on the PhD, including interviews on what exactly he was going to do by senior academics.

He would have to have gone through peer review in the Journal, and acceptance and it is clear in the title how dodgy it is.

Academia needs to have a big wobble of brain cells and question how they allowed something like that to be under the protected umbrella of what should be our trusted, safe, evidence based institutions!

Nah. Not buying it. He was having an exhibitionist wank to child porn. His thin attempts to legitimize this as ‘autoehtnography’ should be roundly rejected. Just as his view in vice magazine that ‘man boy love’ should be a legitimate part of gay culture, should be rejected.

All his attempts to legitimize his, and others, paedophilia should be rejected.

Yes @MaryBlighthouse

Someone on twitter translated a questionnaire he had used whilst conducting research in Japan.

In it he asked if people liked the "real life" version too - which he clarifies is not "2D in a book..but real life living boys"

twitter.com/ickoonite/status/1557745305352675328

I really hope there are some updates tomorrow about police getting involved.

Oh My God. I have just read the English translation of that questionnaire. He appears to be openly trying to gather a community of paedophiles with an interest in young boys. He says ‘let’s build a community’ and that the question about liking real boys is the most important in the questionnaire. And ‘please explain your thoughts in detail’ ( which is presumably to give Karl more wank material as well as finding the men most aligned to his own paedophilia).

I can’t help suspecting that this whole ‘research’ is a guise for him to find and form a paedophile community.

How has this man been allowed to operate in such plain sight? There is something really rotten at the heart of the academic social research community that this has been allowed to happen. Academic humanities depts. need to do some serious soul searching.

I cannot imagine how much more blatant anyone could be about what they are interested in and what they are doing. It's not much of a 'guise', really, just completely bald faced statements of fact and intent.

Quick! The horse has bolted better shut the stable doors.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687941221096600

'Due to ethical concerns surrounding this article and the social harm being caused by the publication of this work, the publishers have now agreed with the Journal Editors and have decided to remove the article while this investigation is ongoing in accordance with COPE guidelines.'

Why does it not mention a criminal investigation?

I'm equally scandalised that this record of criminal activity has passed so many layers of scrutiny till it became public this past week.

Small consolation that the journal has withdrawn it "while it investigates". What the hell is there to investigate?

Quite. I want them to publicly explain the thought processes that caused them to think this article was suitable for publication in the first place. And did any readers of the Journal raise concerns with the journal once it was published.

Because if no-one did, that raises serious concerns about the current state of the qualitative research community.

You’re right, it’s wasn’t a guise at all really, was it?

I wonder what on earth he was asked at his job interview. Because they clearly didn't ask him anything about his previous work, research or interests.

As I've said before, his supervisor has written quite extensively on schoolgirl images in Japanese culture.

I would be wary of assuming she shares Anderssons thoughts or that she knew the details of this "research". I had a look at her publications - and besides thinking "what is the point", I didn't see any red flags.

This is what Manchester is looking into.

Do find it weird neither has made any kind of public statement.