Everyday ethics in community-based participatory research

Sarah Banks, Andrea Armstrong, Kathleen Carter, Helen Graham, Peter Hayward, Alex Henry, Tessa Holland, Claire Holmes, Amelia Lee, Ann McNulty, Niamh Moore, Nigel Nayling, Ann Stokoe and Aileen Strachan

Contemporary Social Science, 2013, vol. 8, issue 3, 263-277

Abstract: This article explores a range of ethical issues that arise in community-based participatory research (CBPR), drawing on literature and examples from practice. The experience of CBPR practitioners adds further weight to the growing critique by many other social researchers of regulatory approaches to research ethics (which focus on rule following in accordance with research governance frameworks, codes of conduct and ethics review procedures). Yet, whilst many of the ethical challenges in CBPR are common to social research generally (informed consent, anonymity, issues of ownership of data and findings), the dynamic, complex and value-based nature of CBPR gives them particular prominence. There are also specific issues relating to the ethics of partnership working, collaboration, blurring of boundaries between researchers and researched, community rights, community conflict and democratic participation that are more frequently encountered in CBPR. Four practice examples are used to demonstrate this argument. These are taken from a young women's community allotment, a community organisation researching poverty, a youth peer research project and a museum-based digital storytelling project. The article concludes that current institutional ethical codes, guidelines and ethical review procedures are not particularly well-suited to CBPR, in that they adopt principle-based and regulatory approaches to ethics; whereas character- and relationship-based approaches to ethics are also very important in CBPR, which is adopted by many researchers with a strong value commitment to social justice.

Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/21582041.2013.769618 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rsocxx:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:263-277

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rsoc21

DOI: 10.1080/21582041.2013.769618

Access Statistics for this article

Contemporary Social Science is currently edited by Professor David Canter

More articles in Contemporary Social Science from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().