Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Ethical Principles, Social Harm and the Economic Relations of Research: Negotiating Ethics Committee Requirements and Community Expectations in Ethnographic Research in Rural Malawi

Ansell, Nicola; Mwathunga, Evance; Hajdu, Flora; Robson, Elsbeth; Hlabana, Thandie; van Blerk, Lorraine; Hemsteede, Roeland

Authors

Nicola Ansell

Evance Mwathunga

Flora Hajdu

Lorraine van Blerk

Roeland Hemsteede



Abstract

Conventional research ethics focus on avoidance of harm to individual participants through measures to ensure informed consent. In long-term ethnographic research projects involving multiple actors, however, a wider concept of harm is needed. We apply the criminological concept of social harm, which focuses on harm produced through and affecting wider social relations, to a research project that we undertook in Malawi. Through this, we show how structural economic inequalities shape the consequences of research for the differently positioned parties involved. Specifically, we focus on dilemmas around transferring resources within three social fields: our relations with a Malawian ethics committee; our interventions in a rural community; and our efforts to engage the policy community. Each of these involved multiple and differently placed individuals within broader, multi-scalar structural relations and reveals the inadequacies of conventional codes of ethics.

Citation

Ansell, N., Mwathunga, E., Hajdu, F., Robson, E., Hlabana, T., van Blerk, L., & Hemsteede, R. (2022). Ethical Principles, Social Harm and the Economic Relations of Research: Negotiating Ethics Committee Requirements and Community Expectations in Ethnographic Research in Rural Malawi. Qualitative Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004221124631

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 22, 2022
Online Publication Date Oct 12, 2022
Publication Date 2022
Deposit Date Sep 8, 2022
Publicly Available Date Oct 13, 2022
Journal Qualitative Inquiry
Print ISSN 1077-8004
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004221124631
Keywords Research ethics; Ethnography; Methodologies; Social harm; Economic inequalities; Malawi
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4068748

Files

Published article (298 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2022.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Lficense (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).





You might also like



Downloadable Citations