Between a rock and a hard place: Ethical dilemmas of local community facilitators doing participatory research projects

Abstract

Participatory research is supposed to involve participants in a collective definition of goals and the co-production and sharing of research outputs. However, when articulated through an extended period of time involving a range of local, national and international actors, the practicalities of participatory research means that certain groups and individuals become responsible for taking leading roles, with subsequent ethical dilemmas. In the 'Community-owned solutions for future environmental challenges in the Guiana Shield, South America' (COBRA) project, the participatory research process involves a group of five Indigenous researchers -"the local team" -in charge of carrying out the research on the ground e.g. defining procedures, carrying out community engagement and supporting the communities in analysing and disseminating the material. This local team is, in turn, supported by researchers from a national NGO and foreign academics.Considerable responsibility has been given to the local team for achieving project outcomes, and freedom in defining project tasks and activities. This paper analyses the multiple ethical dilemmas arising out of this situation, particularly the role of the local team as intermediaries between the wider community and project partners. We highlight the existence of significant mismatches between research expectations, and the ethical processes in operation at community level which are usually established on long-term, tacit and reciprocal relationships. We discuss how local community researchers are challenged with balancing the tensions between these two ethical polarities, while at the same time producing participatory research outcomes that are acceptable by everyone involved.

Community owned solutions: identifying local best practices for social-ecological sustainability

“…For example, youths tended to focus on adaptation strategies with a strong emphasis on new technologies, elder women gave attention to traditional practices and culture, whereas many men emphasized issues of security and rules (Mistry et al 2015a). Our objective within the participatory processes was to engage the "researched" in order to transform them into "researchers" of their own situation, while being explicit about everyone's positionality within the investigation, from the individual community groups to our own (Mistry et al 2015b). This takes time; although the use of a participatory visual approach allowed the collection of a highly qualitative and rich dataset, engagement with the images, and associated discussions with participants was not an easy task, and arriving at a clear interpretation of meaning attributed to the recorded imagery took several iterations of community consultations.…”

“…In addition, our engagement with the local communities was through a team of five local indigenous researchers (also authors on this paper) who could play a bridging role in terms of access to participants, language issues, culturally appropriate conduct of research, and potentially provide continuity beyond the project period (Wheeler 2009, Kamuya et al 2013. Working through the many challenges (and successes) of participatory work, reflected on in detail in Mistry et al (2015b), the indigenous researchers facilitated all the activities at community level including initial consultations to gain free, prior and informed consent, implementation of research methods, and dissemination back to the communities and the NRDDB.…”

Applying the system viability framework for cross-scalar governance of nested social-ecological systems in the Guiana Shield, South America

“…The aim of facilitating the establishment of indicators and thresholds was to Ecology and Society 20(3): 42 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol20/iss3/art42/ allow community participants to assess the effectiveness of specific strategies of community viability by comparing these to actual observations within the communities. For a comprehensive outline and critique of the use of participatory video and photostories within our research, see Mistry and Berardi (2012), Mistry et al (2014a, b), and Mistry et al (2015). Once the video and photographic materials were submitted to the project, they were analyzed by project researchers through a process of coding individual segments/photos based on visual and audio content, using the NVivo qualitative software.…”

Political ecology and decolonial research: co-production with the Iñupiat in Utqiaġvik

“…Once relationships and trust have been built, and approval given for research processes to proceed, residents and local entities should continue to be partners, as desired, in all decision-making phases of the research project: conceiving, designing, implementing, writing, and reporting of research in partnership with communities (Mullins 2011;Tuhiwai Smith 1999). In practice, this means the research agenda is driven by the concerns and questions relevant to and driven by the appropriate local governing and advisory bodies, while the academic or institutional co-researcher often acts as a facilitator (Mistry et al 2015). Further, the establishment of co-learning and trust-centered relationships that require maintenance beyond the life of the research project is necessary -not just formalized, impersonal partnerships (Castleden et al 2012b).…”