Nepantla and Ubuntu Research Ethics: Moving Beyond Regulations Toward an Ethics of Engagement and Solidarity

• In Event: 60.059 - Ethical and Epistemic Intersections in Collaborative Community-Based Research: Challenges for Field Building

Abstract

Nepantla and Ubuntu research ethics: Moving beyond regulations toward an ethics of engagement and solidarity

Drawing on the work of Chicana feminist theorist Gloria Anzaldúa (Anzaldúa, 1987; Keating, 2005) I conceptualize the messy, uncertain terrain of participatory research as a participatory nepantla, an Aztec word that refers to a threshold space, uncomfortably situated at the confluence between worlds. Nepantlas are spaces that quite often exist in opposition to each other. For example, some people find it somewhat dissociative to live and work in both the academy and in marginalized communities. Participatory Action Research (PAR) often occurs in or even sparks the creation of these literal in-between physical spaces that bring people together across or within differences of race/ethnicity, social class, ability, gender, &/or sexual orientation. The PAR nepantlas unite people who might never otherwise interact with each other; but even when working together in genuine partnerships, researchers and community members undoubtedly have to cross borders that divide the collaborators. Within the space of this crossing lies the possibility for painful shattering but also restoration. Nepantlas stimulate a politicized consciousness of our interdependence by illuminating the falseness of dichotomies within ourselves and the imposed margins that work to divide us from others.

In this paper, I suggest that decolonial participatory researchers are nepantleras because they must work in these in-between spaces to build tenuous bridges between potentially conflicting guidance offered by their moral compasses, ethical theory, the principles of institutional review boards, and relational approaches to ethics that are born from their experiences.

I draw from interview data collected from 26 graduate students, veteran researchers, and community partners regarding their experience engaged in participatory research. My analysis of the ethical quandaries encountered within these participatory nepantlas illuminates issues related to: ownership of research data, interpretation of research results, self-determination or research participants/community groups, rights, and social justice. From this analysis, I offer guidance on research ethics for nepantleras and social scientists more generally that move beyond the scope of the usually relied upon sources for ethical direction, such as institutional review boards, the ethical guidelines of professional organizations, research ethics classes and modular computerized ethics trainings.

My discussion of decolonial research ethics is shaped by my analysis of the personal experiences and deliberations of action researchers, some aspects of which often remain private. Many of the PAR researchers I interviewed drew on multiple sources to guide their ethical conduct, pursued a relational ethical praxis, and encountered “sticky situations” that often could not be resolved with traditional ethical touchstones.

Author

• Monique Antoinette Guishard, Bronx Community College - CUNY