On or With or By? Ethics in More-Than-Human Research

• In Event: Participation in More-Than-Human Research: By Whom? For Whom?

Abstract

Ethics is at the center of attention when discussing the participation of children and young people in research. A starting point is that children are competent actors, able to express their own perspectives (Christensen & James 2017). Children are highlighted as active participants – rather than passive objects for research practices – which has in turn put the focus on what research methodologies are best at acknowledging the agency of children. However, this discussion has turned from descriptions on how research can be done, into prescriptions on how research should be done. Accordingly, a gradually progressing value scale is produced where “the more involved the children are in shaping the research – the closer the research is to be done with or by children – the greater the chance for an ethical research practice” (Bodén 2021, 5). At the ‘bad’ end of the scale are research methodologies positioning the children as objects – like standardized tests – and at the ‘good’ end of the scale are newer innovative methodologies positioning children as co-researchers.

Performing research with both children and other than human animals as participants thoroughly calls these conceptions into question: Who is active? Who is passive? In this paper, the notion that certain research methodologies – in and of themselves – are more (or less) ethical will be problematised. In line with the theme for this symposium, the aim of the paper is to explore how assumptions on ethics are challenged in the actual process of doing more-than-human research involving children and other than human animals. What could it mean for children and other than human animals to, together, participate in research? How are ethics enacted in the research methodologies children and other than human animals together produce?

To answer these questions, published research papers/books that focus on children and other than human animals as participants in research are analysed. The methodology for analysis is a ‘going with’ (see Bodén 2017) these participants in the published work, to follow how the participants are discussed in each study, in each specific circumstance. This entails paying close attention to the practices, discourses and materialities highlighted as central for relations between children and other than human animals.

The results show how multiple forms of ethics are produced in more-than-human research, where ethics could be framed as inclusion, as fairness, as producing potential new worlds (Bodén 2021), and as what is yet to be known. The value scale is problematized, as children and other than human animals together shape the research. This makes it difficult to assess whether the research is done on or to or by children, as the scale expands to include more than humans as collaborators in the production of knowledge. This produces important insights into the challenges, but also the potentials, of performing more-than-human research in the current environmental emergency. What it means to be a participating child – and a participating other than human animal – in research is thus (re)defined, which enables an important and extended discussion on research ethics.

Author

• Linnea M.E. Bodén, Stockholm University
  Presenting Author