Ethics of Researching with Communities
Do researchers really listen to communities? Dr Anita Franklin and Dr Beth Fox explore power, trust and fairness in community research. Discover why ethics must sit at the heart of socially just work.
Ethical questions around partnering with and researching in communities often take many elements for granted - that communities are homogenous, vulnerable, lack real agency and are open to being mined for research data. In this special episode we hear from both Dr Anita Franklin and Dr Beth Fox on the challenges, paradoxes and lessons to be learned from decades of working with communities in institutionally funded interdisciplinary research projects. They share insights on how ethical questions should go beyond procedure and constitute the core of all socially just research.
Dr. Anita Franklin who is a writer, educator, radio presenter and playwright with over 30 years of experience at a range of UK Universities (including Leeds and Sheffield) in Sociology, Women’s Studies, Black Studies and Community Development. She uses a variety of methods including creative and narrative approaches to community practice.
Dr Beth Fox, co-leads with this episode’s host AC Davidson, on the interdisciplinary research project Mining for Meaning: a Geoethics of Extractive Industries. Beth is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Salford. Although she has a background in history and linguistics she is now a geologist and geoscientist with broad interests from reconstructing past climate and environmental change through to ethics and inclusion in geoscience.
Recommended Reading:
Credits
- Host: AC Davidson (Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Sheffield)
- Guest: Dr Anita Franklin (University Teacher at the University of Sheffield)
- Guest: Dr Beth Fox (Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Salford)
- Producer and Editor: Hannah Redman (PhD Candidate at the University of Sheffield)
- Producer and Editor: AC Davidson (Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Sheffield)
- Producer and Editor: Nabeela Ahmed (Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Sheffield)
- Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)