Abstract
The question of research ethics has been central to knowledge generation and dissemination, whether in the so-called STEM disciplines or the humanities and social sciences. In the sphere of the social sciences, inquiries into the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of knowledge generation substantially proliferated following the publication of Max Weber’s seminal essay entitled “the meaning of ‘ethical neutrality’” in which Weber (1949, p. 5) underscored that “[e]very professional task has its own ‘inherent norms’ and should be fulfilled accordingly.” Similarly, a raging debate over research ethics in the natural sciences has grown following the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that spanned from 1932 to 1972, when a leak to the press resulted in its termination. Two responsorial approaches have emerged in framing the centrality of research ethics in knowledge production endeavours: procedural and process frameworks. Where the former has led to the proliferation of institutional review boards (IRBs) and research ethics committees (RECs), the latter has invested in value-judgments of the researchers in their dialectical relationship with their research subjects. Still, questions abound particularly regarding research involving human participants: What constitutes informed consent and how should it be obtained? How should voluntary participation and the right to withdraw be protected during and guaranteed after data collection? How should potentially trauma-triggering data be processed and stored both during and after analysis? And what is the researcher’s ethical obligation towards their research participants, their fellow researchers, and their funders, if any? These are questions which this seminar talk seeks to grapple with.
