The ethics of inclusive research: dialogue and doing better

Abstract

There is understood to be a global movement towards democratisation with increasing moves toward broader and greater consultation and participation in decision-making. Within this socio-political climate the power dynamics of research are also undergoing scrutiny. There is a flourishing movement towards more participatory, emancipatory, co-produced or inclusive research involving a stronger sense of dialogue between the researchers and the researched or even a more radical shift in these roles. While there are multiple drivers behind this movement - some pragmatic, even cynical - the major impetus is a concern with ethics. In this keynote presentation I examine inclusive research as an ethical response to research problems and contexts in which marginalised groups have been wronged by research in the past. Drawing on empirical work in the fields of disability and education I explore some difficult questions regarding how much inclusive research should aim to change the people with whom (not on whom) the research is conducted and how different ways of knowing can be brought into dialogue for the purposes of social transformation. I argue that critical reflection on the ethics of inclusive research helps us to envisage new research spaces and expands our notion of what it is we want research to do for us.

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ORCID for Melanie Nind: orcid.org/0000-0003-4070-7513

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