In the course of conducting CBPR research, I have reflected on situations, which raised ethical questions for me. I wondered about the extent to which other CBPR researchers around the world might be having similar questions. A scoping review revealed that while there was much interest and writing on the topic there is no body of work that brings together experiences of CBPR researchers globally relating to ethics at the different stages of the research process.
Subsequently, I chose to write about the ethical implications of CBPR as part of my PhD.
If you are a CBPR researcher and you would like to participate in this study, you are invited to post about your experiences on a blog with dedicated use for this study.
More information can be found at http://wp.me/4fzpl where you can also read the Participant Information Statement.
I think part of the problem is that ethics committees are generally not very well equiped with dealing with these kinds of projects when they review them and try to review them within their normal framework (which traditionally has its roots in the biomedical/clinical), which is less than ideal. Work needs to be done to agree what might be an ethical framework for this and other kinds of "engaged" research and then this needs to be transmitted to ethics committees. This kind of work is iterative and the ethical approval process needs to be responsive to that.
Yes, the existing ethics review processes seem to be viewed by many researchers, to be less than ideal for assessing the ethical rigour of CBPR. Certainly an appropriate ethical framework that responds to the complexities of CBPR could help but I wonder how that framework might look?
The study I am conducting on the topic of ethical implications of CBPR can be found at :-
http://wp.me/4fzpl
where you are very welcome to join the study and share your comments.
This is very topical for us (myself and Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree) currently. We are working with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to teach and inspire students in Community-based and participatory asset mapping, and participatory action research whilst we complete our ethnographies of the Orang Asli at Tasik Chini.
Our emphasis on the participatory is welcomed, we feel, but the students have been set a task that involves door-to-door mapping of a survey type. We have stressed the importance of permissions, non-assumed consent, ongoing consent and so forth, and especially working together with villagers to set the strengths, needs and agendas to follow. This may not happen and if it does it may put the students and university in some degree of opposition to state and government drives for the region - something that culturally is not taken lightly by the students.
Our ethical and moral issues concern the integrity of what we are doing together with the people of the Tasik Chini area and the interests of the students and university. These may be at odds and we have to negotiate these.
This is an interesting situation. Any thoughts on how you might work through divergent interests while maintaining integrity of your work?
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