Ethical Research: The Rights and Wrongs of Research
By Kanishka Nawabi
London
What is Ethics?
‘‘Ethics: Greek, ethikos, = custom or usage. In philosophy, it is a study of that which is right and good to do. Pre-modern philosophies tend to use the Word of God [as interpreted by a priesthood] as the source of ethical behaviour.
Modern utilitarians argue that ethical behaviour begins with the idea that the greatest good for the greatest number of people sets the stage for determination of ethical behaviour.’’1
In every days life Ethics is like Weather! Everyone talks about it but no body can do much about. If we close the books down and think for a moment, what is ethics actually all about? In the simplest interpretation it is about right and wrong.
The problem with ethics is that it can be interpreted individually like most of the concepts, hence open to personal interpretation. More controversy over the ethics is that if we look at issues like abortion; globalization; capital punishment; gun control; drugs; poverty, democracy; military intervention we definitely find several ethical dimensions in them.
Ethics and Research:
As far as researchers are concerned, they all acknowledge the importance of ethics. In most of the research it is inevitable to avoid the ethical concerns in different stages of social research. When research is carried out researchers usually expect that their 'ethical behavior' solve all the ethical concerns in the process and ignore to have a yardstick for it. Even if the researchers are considering the ethics on client/ population side they simply forget about its complexity when it comes to ethical concerns towards their fellow researchers.
Even unfortunately not all of researchers really understand ethics as well as we think we do, or well as we should.
Many national and international professional bodies have spelled out the ethical issues that can arise during the social research. Ethical issues can't be ignored in that they related directly to the value of a piece of research.
"Writing about ethics in social research are frequently frustrating fro four reasons:
1. Writers often differ quite widely from each other over ethical issues and questions. In other words, they differ over what is and is not ethically acceptable.
2. The main elements in the debates do not seem to move forward a great deal.
3. Debates about ethics have often accompanied well-known, not to say infamous, cases of alleges ethical transgression.
4. … the problem with the association of the ethics with certain studies (and methods) is that it implies that ethical concerns only or even primarily reside in some methods but not others. As a result, the impression can be gleaned that other methods, such as questionnaires… are immune from ethical problems."2
Ethical concerns:
Discussing the ethics in research, there are mainly four areas where most of the literature and studies are focused:
1. Participants safety:
For most of the new student to research, the literature in first glance is not that helpful. Issues like participant’s safety and research participant gives them limited understanding of the matter. Talking of participant’s safety gives them the impression that it involves only physical safety or as far as population is concerned, they simply think it is only sample/ population/ client. But there is more to that.
While talking about safety it can entail physical, emotional, developmental; stress, loss of self esteem etc, also when we talk about participants it is not our clients but our fellow researcher or any member of our research team. I would like to discuss ethics and research teams in later stage.
One important aspect to participants safety is the issue of how records about the participants are kept confidentially. However the problem with the confidentially is more complicated when it comes to qualitative research. In quantitative research it is relatively easy to play with numbers and somehow avoid the names and other confidential information but in qualitative research where more information on the background and place of the subjects is available which makes is literally quite challenging to achieve confidentiality.
2. Consent:
The principle means of consent is that the participants should be given as much information and as much time to make their own decision whether to participate in the process or not.
‘‘Inquiries involving human subjects should be based as far as practicable on the freely given informed consent of subjects. Even if participation is required by law, it should still be as informed as possible’’3.
One controversy over the issue of the consent is the role of the subjects in the research. For example the research carried out by a team from Canadian Drug Addiction Center ‘Illicit Drugs and the Risk of HIV Infection’ is conducted with 103 illicit drug users who are HIV infected as well. They all are under treatment in the same center. It is pointed out that all subjects are interviewed under their consent, but it also says in the subject’s selection process that the data on them is released from the same center as their researchers are working for.
The fact is that in the first hand if these subjects were not identified by this treatment center, how one would have known whether the subjects would have participated in this research. Second issue is that since these subjects are the beneficiaries of this center’s service, they may be afraid of loosing their benefits by not accepting to participate in this research.
‘‘As far as possible sociological research should be based on the freely given
informed consent of these studied. This implies a responsibility on the sociologist
to explain as fully as possible, and in terms meaningful to participants, what
the research is about, who is undertaking and financing it, why it is being
undertaken, and how it is to be promoted’’4.
Sometimes however its very difficult to explain to potential participant all information that might be needed for them to make the proper judgment, but the researchers should try their best to avoid even the minor informed issues such as deliberately not disclosing the exact amount of time the interview would take, or not disclosing all the necessary information about the research topics for the fear that it may direct the answer of the subjects, should be avoided.
3. Privacy:
In Research ethics, this part is much to do with the limits to which privacy can be invaded by the researcher than the amount it can be kept. Other side of the same coin but this can be very important. In this way more of responsibility is put on researcher’s shoulders in a sense that the researchers should try their upmost to avoid those gray areas in invasion of privacy which can harm or endanger the clients during or after the research process. This can particularly safeguard privacy of the very vulnerable clients, those who can’t or don’t know much about their rights to their privacy.
‘‘Sociologists should take culturally appropriate steps to secure informed consent and to avoid invasions of privacy’’5
Even if the clients agree to the notion of informed consent, still they have the rights not to answer some questions, during interview, those they feel it is ‘very’ private which at any costs don’t need to be disclosed to public. The issue of privacy is somehow linked to issues of anonymity and confidentiality in the research process, which already been touched up on the issues of consent and harm.
Researchers need to put extra ethical efforts on methods such as covert operations and even open participation are one of those methods in research which are highly controversial. In covert operation of course there researchers directly invades someone’s privacy but when it comes to open participation, participants identities are openly disclosed to all.
4. Deception:
Here we are talking about deception on the researchers end when they present the data as something which simply is not. This issue can be very controversial since on the researchers end, they try to keep the clients/ participants are ill informed as possible so they can limit the participants understanding of what all this research is about.
‘‘6.15 Deception in Research:(a) Psychologists do not conduct a study involving deception unless they have determined that use of deceptive techniques is justified by the study's prospective scientific, educational, or applied value…. (b) Psychologists never deceive research participants about significant aspects that would affect their willingness to participate.. (c) Any other deception that is an integral feature of the design and conduct of an experiment must be explained to participants as early as is feasible.’’6
As explained in APA code of Ethics, there are rare circumstances where deception is allowed to be used on participants, first when the participants are honestly informed about requirements of the their participation and second the participants are fully informed about the deception.
Ethics and Research Team Work:
Looking at the ethics in research papers we mostly come across the ethical concerns of the research and researchers toward population, sponsors, environment etc, but hardly we can find any good literature on concerns while doing research in teams. These concerns can vary from team's responsibility towards one another, to sharing the responsibilities or financial benefits.
This is crucial point but unfortunately disregarded in most of the research processes. In a research team, it is not only that each team should be concerned with much concerns which individual researchers must deal like confidentiality, consent, responsibility towards sponsors etc but also because of a structure which is created because of team work, they need to work out additional ethical concerns such as leadership, team work, balance between task and people concern etc.
Research teams can be formed in different ways according to different research needs, they can be community mobilizers involved in a team with the community leaders or academic researchers with social worker or simply a group of students all together. All in all researchers from different backgrounds may form a team. Sometimes the problem with the formation of such groups is that even if these researchers in their individual capacity can carry out different types of research, when it comes to sharing different roles and responsibilities only the word collaboration may not work.
Issues encountered by individual researchers as part of team:
When we talk about ethics in teams, it can be as complicated and open to individual interpretation as it is when we talk about ethical concerns towards research's client. But what can be a bit defining in research team ethics is the word team in its practical and theoretical forms.
The research team can be said to have a time limitation, which includes carrying out planning, field work, data collection, data analysis and finally writing up report. There are factors such as age, experience, training can play a role on the researchers level of acceptance in a team. When the group come together, members are starting to form goals. Then team will then need a leader and additional issues will need to be included like budget, timelines, and last but not least the individual responsibilities.
One important aspect of the team or group research is the team building factor. ‘‘Team dynamics are an integral, if not always explicit, part of the research process, and they will govern research outcomes to a great degree’’ 7
It is also important to consider the organizational structure of the team, either it can diffuse many problems during the research process or actually cause them. Besides that each researchers within this structure are prone to family, work and other various problems which even a apparently most perfect research and team structure can’t avoid.
Conclusion: So How Shall We Proceed?
There is no way that ethical concerns overweight the enormous potential benefits which overall research achieves. However, as I explained earlier, the ambiguity over the concept and meaning of the ethics makes is very difficult for finding the right answer to all ethical questions.
The ethical concerns on the parts of the team is not only with clients but also how the this issue is addressed on the research team’s end. ‘‘Since team research is team research is emergent, communal, craft-like, highly interactive, and always tentative, there are no real ‘answers’ to ethical questions’’8 ‘‘As we have seen, ethical codes are not formulaic’’9. So if we don’t have any clear ‘answers’ then how can we avoid ethical challenges? Different literature and scholars share somehow the same answer which is, to learn from the experiences of ourselves and others.
Researchers need to work on their consciousness on importance of discussing the ethical issues among themselves. They need to find out what is really the problem, then I think it would be much easier to find solution for them.
Last but not least suggestion is that ethics and its concerns needs to be part of the very planning and process of research. It is not very ‘affordable’ for ethical concerns and discussions to be left at the end like a broken-legged donkey at the end of a safari!
I would end up with W. Graves and M. Shields as he says: ‘‘ I invite us to continue the dialogue, the better to think and act in fair and just ways in all our research endeavours’’10.
Notes
1 Dictionary of Critical Sociology
2Bryman 476, 477
3 SRA
4 BSA
5 ASA
6 APA
7 Erickson and Stull 6.
8 Erickson and Stull 76, 77.
9 Manderson and Wilson 12, 65.
10 W. Graves and M. Shields 24.
Works Cited
Dictionary of Critical Sociology http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/ethics/ethics_list.html
Bryman, Alan. Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
SRA Ethical Guidelines.
BSA Statement.
ASA Codes of Ethics.
APA Code of Ethics. http://www.irb.purdue.edu/deception.shtml
Erickson and Stull.
Erickson and Stull
Manderson and Wilson.
W. Graves and M. Shields, "Rethinking Moral Responsibility In Fieldwork: The Situated Negotiation of Research Ethics in Anthropology and Sociology," Ethics and the Profession of Anthropology, 132-151.
No one is a 'Defeated Majority' in Afghanistan
By Kanishka Nawabi
As Afghanistan moves towards becoming a viable State, there exists immense mistrust between its ethnically diverse communities. The mistrust created over the last two decades is major factor in destabilizing Afghan security. The troublent past still flicks through Afghans minds. Khalq and Parcham, created Pushtun v. Tajik divide. So called Afghan Islamic government of last decade indeed disgraced the ethnic divide principles and even made a whole community (Afghan-Hindus) to flee their country! And it goes on to Taliban etc, till now. One of the most important factors for continuation of these divisions is the lack of time and space for a Post-war reconciliation.
Afghans fought Russians, continued to fight each other and then fought Pakistanis and Arabs and on and on. In addition to that no Afghan government had a chance for developing a policy to punish individuals guilty of basic Human Rights violations. We still don't know where are those traitors who bulldozered our brothers and uncles in Pullicharkhi.
As now Afghan government found chance to embark on a policy of Post-war Reconciliation, we need to develop a policy for our criminal justice system and punish those individual criminals of last two decades. This policy would help stop future atrocities in Afghanistan and also help ethnic reconciliation. If we continue to embark on a course of forgiveness, in tens of years we would still have those memories of the past, we would still see Pusthoons as traitors to Afghanistan, Hazaras as Nail Stickers and Ear collectors, Tajiks as Traitors to everyone, Uzbeks as blood thirsty, rapist Gilam Jams and the list of accusations would go on and on. Afghans already know their crimes and criminals, but sofar couldn't find a legal platform to prove them guilty and prosecute them.
However a policy of prosecuting these criminals needs a criminal justice and legal systems, which is basically non-existing in Afghanistan. Afghanistan also lacks the means and capacity to create systems which can effectively prosecute the vicious of its criminals. What Afghans need is the international support to build up its legal system from its very foundations.
To build up a legal system for a country like Afghanistan with minimum Human Resources would take ages and till that time we would still have these criminals roving round in 4x4s and Jeeps in Kabul streets or all over the world.
However, there is a viable solution for this process, and that is the commencement of International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan by the support of the UN Security Council. This tribunal can be a quick fix to the atrocities committed in the last two decades. This International Tribunal can refer to the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, adopted on 8 June 1977 to clarify the definition of war crimes in Afghanistan.
It should have the power to prosecute persons responsible for killing 2 million Afghans, killing 45,000 civilians only in Kabul, maiming 800,000 people, burying hundreds of hazaras alive, sticking nails over head of hundreds of pushtoons and tajiks, rapping tens of girls from Kabul and many more.
Lets hope for the day we come to terms that it is not the whole Pushtoons or Tajiks or Hazaras who committed the horrendous crimes, but a bunch of tugs mostly sent from neighbouring countries to destroy our nation.
