The Ethical Stakes of Collaborative Community-Based Social Science Research

Abstract

This multivocal essay engages complex ethical issues raised in collaborative community-based research (CCBR). It critiques the fraught history and limiting conditions of current ethics codes and review processes, and engages persistent troubling questions about the ethicality of research practices and universities themselves. It cautions against positioning CCBR as a corrective that fully escapes these issues. The authors draw from a range of philosophic, African-centric, feminist, decolonial, Indigenous, and other critical theories to unsettle research ethics. Contributors point toward research ethics as a praxis of engagement with aggrieved communities in healing from and redressing historical trauma.

Collaborative research for justice and multi-issue movement building: Challenging discriminatory policing, school closures, and youth unemployment

“…Researchers who challenge these traditional views deeply unsettle the ethics of research and resituate disciplined inquiry (Baloy et al, 2016;Fine, 2007). Engaged scholars reject this clean separation of ethical and epistemic realms (Glass et al, 2018), drawing arguments from within the academic disciplines themselves (e.g., see Fricker, 2009) as well as from alternative perspectives, such as Linda Tuhiwai Smith's critique from the perspective of indigenous methodologies (Smith, 1999). They argue that research that is consciously 'interested' and grounded in particular perspectives provides for a 'strong objectivity' that actually is a more precise description of all understanding, scientific included (Harding, 1991).…”

“…At the same time, knowledge from outside the academy, for example knowledge generated on the streets by those without degrees, is often positioned by those in power (if acknowledged at all) as unsystematic, subjective, parochial and politically biased. Un-credentialed knowledge bearers and producers remain virtually excluded from the "serious" practice and cultural benefits of social science, and such persistent epistemic injustices not only undermine the rigor of academic knowledge itself but they undermine the capacity of universities to respond to their historical and ethical burdens and contradictions (Glass et al, 2018;Warren et al, 2018). Collaborative research for justice claims an expanded "right to research" (Appadurai, 2006) that demands to ask research by whom, for whom, and for what purpose when considering whose expertise should be "in the room" at each stage of the research and who is essential to have "at the table" when the moment of decision comes.…”

Coloniality in the German Higher Education System: Implications for Policy and Institutional Practice

“…Their curricula may center absent voices of the marginalized or subaltern, and simultaneously explore the epistemology of difference supported by the university. Further, these units may serve as catalysts and coactive forces for political advocacy and action, though indeed there is also danger that the formation of identity studies departments may redirect energy towards normative academic goals and away from such advocacy (Glass et al, 2018). Finally, ethnic and identity studies units may serve as generators of new methods and methodologies and as multipliers of related work.…”

Assessing Climate Data and Information Needs of Indigenous Communities in the Arid Southwestern United States

“…Researchers who implement participatory research methods understand the importance of sharing research processes and ndings with participants regularly and in a format that emphasizes transparency, respects local culture and knowledge, and ultimately improves research accountability (Datta et al 2015;Glass et al 2018). Preliminary assessment results were reported back to participants attending the 2018 Summit, and nal results were presented at the 2019 summit along as part of a capacity-building workshop focused on integrating and protecting traditional knowledge in climate adaptation planning efforts.…”