Ethics as Obligation: Reconciling Diverging Research Practices With Marginalized Communities

Abstract

This article argues that research design is impacted by ideological frameworks, and when conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR), can create challenges and conflicts throughout the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and other institution’s approval processes. I explore the ideological frameworks that underpin conventional and CBPR methodologies to show how collaboration can influence the questions asked and answered, the roles of researchers in the project, and how research findings can better impact the community at the center of the research. I offer a snapshot of our CBPR project with women who were currently and formerly incarcerated and document the challenges we encountered given our CBPR methodology and the unique population at the center of our study. I explore the ethical challenges, complications, and delays that emerged from these conflicting ideologies and methodologies. I propose that how we engage in research and our research practices impact the questions we ask and answer, how people are represented, and ultimately the material conditions of people’s lives. I conclude with recommendations for researchers and IRBs, and even more importantly, community partners to make CBPR projects more inclusive and ethically sound and to hold researchers and IRBs accountable to more inclusive research practices that can create more effective research outcomes and greater community impact.