Lesson 6. Ethics in Data Collection
Process and Methods for ethical research
The process of ethical research is as follows:
- Think ethically: as researchers, the African view is that you should think ethically all the time and not only think about ethics when it is time to research. This means that we embody ethics.
- Plan ethically: the researcher should not wait for a community, research participant, ethics committee or a peer to tell them that their plan is not ethical. Instead, plan what is ethical. Ethical research does not necessarily need an ethics committee to say it is ethical.
- Get approvals, advice, consents and confirmations: approval to do research is obtained from the people, community, organisations and leaders involved. They can also provide advice, consent or confirm your plans. Ethics committees provide both approval, advice or both.
- Act ethically: from recruitment to use of results, the researcher and their team should act ethically.
Some of the methods used to achieve ethical research are:
Decolonial Approach (DA) – taking an active role to remove colonial approaches, language etc. This approach argues that ethics are not one size fits all, western ethics are not all applicable in Africa and vice versa. Western ethics are based on western philosophy and African ethics should be based on African philosophy.
Local Ethics Approach (LEA) – use local ethics in all stages of the research process and getting local ethics approval including at family, community, Country and national level. This means that the researcher identifies ethical issues with their research communicate these at the levels their research qualifies together with a description of their research so that further ethical issues are identified. When all issues are ironed out, ethics approval is then provided. This is not the same as permission or consent.
The total agreement technique (TTAT) – this technique ensures that all people in the research are in agreement with what has been proposed and what will be done as follows (1) permission to do the researcher or to be involved or associated has been granted by all those responsible, not just the university or organisation (2) ethics have been noted, discussed, resolved and agreed (3) consent from participants has been obtained in the preferred way – verbal, witnessed or written (4) agreement on data, results and what has to be published and how
Non-verbal consent (NVC) – consent does not need to be written, writing down and issuing forms is intimidating and takes away continuous negotiation which is valued in African society. Ethics do not exits on forms, it is human beings that should be ethical. Alternative forms or NVCs include oral consent where someone says they are giving consent or witnessed consent, where they say it in the presence or one or more people.
Local language approach (LLA) – use local languages in all stages of the research process and not using language participants do not understand
Munyai approach – when you approach communities, use an intermediary. The intermediary can be an individual, a community leader, an elder, a family, a griot or an organization.
The San Method – In the San Code of Ethics (South African San Institute (SAAI, 2017), community has a key role. The code emphasizes respect, honest, care, justice and co-production of knowledge. The San method says there should be clear communication in understandable not academic scientific language, show San people reports before publication, align your research to local needs, and not stealing knowledge.
Sacred places and spaces approach – as a researcher know and respect spaces, places and artifacts of cultural and spiritual significance