Ethics and Outcomes: Negotiating community- based relationships within academic research structures

• In Event: Methodological Challenges in Community-Engaged Research (Co-sponsored by the Sociology Advisory Network (SAN) and the Community on Community-Engaged Scholarship & Teaching (CEST))

Abstract

This paper examines the challenges of navigating competing research agendas within academic and community partnerships. Focusing specifically on my dissertation research, this paper offers a case study of community-based action research in Toronto, Canada with a partnership between myself and York University and R.I.S.E. Edutainment, a local, arts-based youth organization. This paper outlines community- based research and why I chose this type of research. Next, I highlight three phases where expectations between the academy and the organization were mismatched. I look at the ethics process and the ethics paperwork produced through this process and competing understandings of informed consent between the institution and the organization. For the organization, informed consent meant working closely with the staff and artists to create research questions and documents that reflected the desires of the organization itself, and not necessarily the institution or the institution’s ethics review board. The organization sought questions and consent forms that were grounded in succinctness and clear language, which they felt would offer clarity for the artists about what they were consenting to participate in. However, through the ethics process, these questions and the accompanying consent forms and processes required to ask the questions became longer and more involved, covering more explanation but sacrificing clarity. A conflict between what the organization felt was ethical research clashed with the requirement of the REB. The length of time for institutional approval, after organizational approval had already been received from the board, Executive Director, and program staff also resulted in a competing understanding of how much autonomy a community is able to possess in shaping community-based research. Despite these challenges, the knowledge produced through this project had immense value for both the organization and the academy. The artists were able to undertake their own research and create a mixtape.

Author

• Anna R Lippman, York University