King Gabrielle
Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Soc Cult Geogr. 2021 Jul 12;24(1):104-120. doi: 10.1080/14649365.2021.1939122. eCollection 2023.
As researchers, institution-wide regulatory and organisational cultures guide our work. Over the past two decades, University Research Ethics Committees have been formally established across social science disciplines. However, the functioning of these committees has not been without critique. It is often argued that established ethical procedures informed by the medical sciences do not fit well with the more iterative epistemologies and unpredictable practices of doing social fieldwork. In this paper, I contribute to these discussions by considering what a further framework, a 'culture of care', might offer to university research ethics. A culture of care has evolved in contexts like the National Health Service (NHS) and animal research, and makes central claims around support, openness, collaboration and relationships. Bringing this to research ethics, I explore experiences of care through moments of friction in doing fieldwork with people living with Motor Neurone Disease. Identifying gaps between the institutional, personal and relational, I tentatively suggest some key features that a culture of care for research ethics might seek to develop. These discussions are also timely. Wider conversations emerging around reimagining research cultures in higher education provide an opportune moment to consider what a reimagined research ethics might look like and offer too.
作为研究人员，全机构的监管和组织文化指导着我们的工作。在过去二十年里，大学研究伦理委员会已在社会科学各学科中正式设立。然而，这些委员会的运作并非毫无批评之声。人们常说，以医学为依据确立的伦理程序与社会实地调查中更具迭代性的认识论及不可预测的实践不太契合。在本文中，我通过思考一个进一步的框架，即“关怀文化”，可能为大学研究伦理带来什么，来参与这些讨论。关怀文化已在诸如国民保健服务体系（NHS）和动物研究等背景中发展起来，并围绕支持、开放、合作及关系提出了核心主张。将其引入研究伦理，我通过与运动神经元病患者进行实地调查时的摩擦时刻来探索关怀体验。识别机构、个人和关系层面之间的差距，我初步提出了关怀研究伦理文化可能试图发展的一些关键特征。这些讨论也很及时。围绕重塑高等教育研究文化展开的更广泛对话提供了一个契机，来思考重塑后的研究伦理可能是什么样以及能提供什么。
