Cultural Humility, Human Research Ethics Review, and Informed Consent

Abstract

The United States, through research ethics review, is complicit in ethically recolonizing countries into U.S. dominant understandings. This review and consent are seen as an all-encompassing ethical understanding and a discrete, one-time experience. Drawing on personal experiences and in-depth interviews with international and domestic subculture research participants and researchers, the authors argue that the United States ethics review must move toward a nuanced understanding of human ethics review that exhibits cultural responsiveness within culturally complex research, with a focus on cultural humility. Power, gender, sexuality, and relationships between participants, researchers, and research ethics boards are discussed.