Community-Based Participatory Research and the Im/Possibilities of Ethical Knowledge Production in Academic Spaces

• In Event: Testimonies as Method: Transformative Curricular Practices From Communities to the Self

Abstract

In contrast to positivist approaches to research, CBPR centers ethical questions in knowledge production. At the same time, a growing body of literature in Critical University Studies (CUS) has critiqued the ways by which universities reproduce dominant power relations. This conceptual paper puts CUS in conversation with CBPR to analyze the limits and possibilities of producing ethical research in and through academia. While CBPR has long sought to understand “best practices” for producing ethical scholarship, this paper aims instead to answer, “What are the limits and possibilities of producing ethical scholarship, particularly within academic settings?” This paper analyzes common ethical dilemmas in practicing CBPR to examine the ways by which structural power relations in academia implicate each of these challenges.

Author

• Joanne Tien, Stanford University