Epistemic Dissonance and Ethical Pluralism in Sociological Fieldwork: A Critical Study of Research Ethics in Postcolonial Contexts of the Global South

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@article{1706048,
      author = {Dr. Mahadev F Wadekar},
      title = {Epistemic Dissonance and Ethical Pluralism in Sociological Fieldwork: A Critical Study of Research Ethics in Postcolonial Contexts of the Global South},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2024},
      volume = {8},
      number = {1},
      pages = {771-779},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1706048.pdf},
      abstract = {Current sociological fieldwork in the Global South has brought to light tensions between universalist ethical principles (which are often institutionalized by institutional review boards [IRBs] in the Global North) and the particular moral economy of postcolonial theatres. This is a theoretical paper that investigates the epistemic dissonance that occurs when powerful, supposedly ?neutral? ethical norms encounter plural and locally-embedded forms of moral reasoning. Building on postcolonial theory, decolonial epistemologies and institutional critique with respect to research ethics, the article posits a framework of ethical pluralism in response to the ongoing coloniality of knowledge in sociology. Notwithstanding extensive critique by feminist, indigenous and Global South scholars including Tuhiwai Smith (2012), Santos (2014), Bhambra (2017) institutional codes of ethics still reflect an individualist, formalist and biomedical conception of consent, autonomy and risk. Empirical work in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America published before July 2024 (e.g., Nair 2021; Akosua & Mensah 2023) has demonstrated that researchers regularly face informal, relational or context-sensitive ethical demands in particular in communities organized along hierarchies of caste, gender and indigeneity. These situated ethics directly challenge the decontextualized rationality of IRB protocols, resulting in ethical paradoxes that are managed, mediated or protested in practice. This article synthesizes the tensions and provides an analytical framework shaping around three main themes: (1) the coloniality of ethical oversight regimes and how that orient with hegemonic epistemologies; (2) the importance of relational ethics enacted through research interactions in field-based sites; and (3) strategies for developing ethical navigation and resistance from researchers positioned within or associated to marginalized communities in the Global South. With this conceptual map, the article advocates for a reconstitution of research ethics as dialogic, reflexive, and epistemically just. Instead of promoting a relativist resignation from any notion of ethical values, the paper suggests an ethics of negotiation one that embraces epistemic diversity and power imbalances in the production of knowledge.  The article finds the call will inform continued debates around decolonizing methodology and recommends that institutional bodies reimagine strict systems of compliance in the tradition of pluralist, context-sensitive ethical practices that make space for the voices and moral logics of the Global South.},
      keywords = {Epistemic Dissonance, Ethical Pluralism, Postcolonial Sociology, Research Ethics, Global South, Decolonizing Methodology},
      month = {July},
  }