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Qualitative researchers often face unpredictable ethical issues during fieldwork. These may be regarded as ethical dilemmas that need to be ‘solved’, but Guillemin and Gillam’s concept of ‘ethically important moments’ provides an alternative framing. Using examples, their concept is developed to suggest that ethical issues in the conduct of research can illuminate and supplement other fieldwork data. Far from being problematic, the dissonance between the procedural ethics of research ethics committees and real-world research can provide opportunities for a more subtle and nuanced understanding of the field.