Calls for Ethical Pluralism

In separate essays, Nathan Emmerich and Igor Gontcharov argue for more flexible systems that would avoid imposing biomedical ethics on the social sciences. Emmerich calls for an emphasis on professional ethics, while Gontcharov seeks “a set of ethical principles that would better reflect the position of [social sciences and humanities] researchers and participants.” I am left unsure what either proposed reform would look like in practice.

[Nathan Emmerich, “Reframing Research Ethics: Towards a Professional Ethics for the Social Sciences,” Sociological Research Online 21, no. 4 (2016): 7, DOI: 10.5153/sro.4127; Igor Gontcharov, “A New Wave of Positivism in the Social Sciences: Regulatory Capture and Conceptual Constraints in the Governance of Research Involving Humans,” SSRN Scholarly Paper (Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, October 31, 2016), DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2861908.]

Brazil calls for "equitable representation from the Social Sciences and Humanities"

Brazil is revising its research ethics standards in ways that will help tailor them to research in the social sciences and the humanities. The standards provide for greater representation by scholars in those fields when policies and decisions are made, and they decenter some of the medical assumptions that had previously governed all research. But they do not go as far as the Canadian TCPS2 in recognizing the legitimacy of critical inquiry.

[Iara Coelho Zito Guerriero, “Approval of the Resolution Governing the Ethics of Research in Social Sciences, the Humanities, and Other Disciplines That Use Methodologies Characteristic of These Areas: Challenges and Achievements,” Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 21, no. 8 (August 2016): 2619–29, doi:10.1590/1413–81232015218.17212016.]

Will TCPS2 Improvements Reach Researchers?

Canadian oral historian Nancy Janovicek applauds the ways that TCPS2 improves over TPCS’s treatment of oral history, but she warns that historians still must devote time to bureaucratic strategy that might be better spent exploring ethics and interviewing narrators.

[Nancy Janovicek, ,“Oral History and Ethical Practice after TCPS2,” in The Canadian Oral History Reader, ed. Kristina R. Llewellyn, Alexander Freund, and Nolan Reilly (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2015), 73–97.]

Strangers on a Train

In Patricia Highsmith’s novel, Strangers on a Train (adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock), a sociopath plans to get away with murder. Rather than kill his own nemesis and risk arrest, he will kill the troublesome wife of a stranger, and expect that stranger to reciprocate by killing his detested father. Since each man could arrange to be out of town at the time of his relative’s murder, each alibi could be ironclad.

Ethnographers Staci Newmahr and Stacey Hannem think this is a good way to deal with the IRB. The idea might be stupid enough to work in some cases, but it is also a distraction from the hard work of regulatory reform.

[Staci Newmahr and Stacey Hannem, “Surrogate Ethnography Fieldwork, the Academy, and Resisting the IRB,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, May 10, 2016, doi:10.1177/0891241616646825.]

First, Do Some Harm, Part IV: Fake Submission to Fake Conference Yields Fake Charge of Misconduct

Professor Jim Vander Putten, who spent six years as chair of the University of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR) IRB, is now charged with violating university rules by conducting research without that board’s approval. The case highlights several problems with the current system, most notably its failure to provide standards for studies designed to expose misbehavior.

[Peter Schmidt, “A Scholar’s Sting of Education Conferences Stirs a Hornet’s Nest,” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 14, 2016, paywalled.]

New Book: The Ethics Rupture

The University of Toronto Press has published The Ethics Rupture: Exploring Alternatives to Formal Research-Ethics Review, edited by Will C. van den Hoonaard and Ann Hamilton. My chapter is entitled, “Ethical Pluralism: Scholarly Societies and the Regulation of Research Ethics.”

My NPRM Comments

Perhaps 2016 will be the year when OHRP makes good on its 2007 promise to “give more guidance on how to make the decision on what is research and what is not,” in the form of a promulgated revision to the Common Rule. If so, Happy New Year, OHRP!

Wth these hopes, I have submitted my own comments on the NPRM. I have posted a copy of the PDF I submitted, and below is a web version with links.

My NPRM Response. Draft 1.

Though the deadline for commenting on the NPRM has been extended until January 6, I post here a draft of my comments in the hopes that they may help others craft theirs and send me feedback on mine.

NPRM: Will Political Science Interviews Require Review?

What do we know about interview research under the NPRM?

Whatever its final provisions, the new Common Rule seems bound to be much harder to follow than, say, Canada’s TCPS2. The proposed rule is full of cross references from one section to the next, and often to other documents, such as Subpart D or the Belmont Report. This makes it hard to figure out what it says about any given form of research.

Here’s what I’ve been able to figure out about one form: interview research. My sense is that the NPRM proposes to eliminate IRB review for the vast majority of conversations between consenting adults, but it may unintentionally impose review on projects that do not merit it.

TCPS Envy, Continued

Writing in the Journal of Academic Freedom, law student James Nichols presents Canada’s TCPS2 as a model of balance “that promotes intuitive and promising research without sacrificing human integrity and protection.” However, his conclusion is largely speculative, since we still lack studies of how the document is working in practice.

[James Nichols, “The Canadian Model: A Potential Solution to Institutional Review Board Overreach,” Journal of Academic Freedom 6 (2015)]

NPRM: Escape for Many, Scant Relief for Those Left Behind

While the NPRM might do much to reduce the number of projects requiring IRB review, it would do little to improve the quality of review for those projects for which it is still required. This is a retreat from the more ambitious plans of the 2011 advance notice of proposed rulemaking.

[This post will be cross-posted to the Petrie-Flom Center's Bill of Health, which is conducting an online NPRM Symposium.]

Canada Embraces Ethical Pluralism

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada have released a new version of TCPS2. Though it is not a dramatic change from the 2010 edition, it serves a reinder of how much more nimble the Canadian system is compared to the rigid U.S. regulations.

I was particularly interested in the new acknowledgement that Research Ethics Boards (REBs) do not possess a monopoly on ethical judgment:

"Activities outside the scope of research subject to REB review (see Articles 2.5 and 2.6), as defined in this Policy, may still raise ethical issues that would benefit from careful consideration by an individual or a body capable of providing some independent guidance, other than an REB. These ethics resources may be based in professional or disciplinary associations, particularly where those associations have established best practices guidelines for such activities in their discipline."

Back in 2012, I traveled to Canada to argue that "Scholarly associations know more about the ethics of particular forms of research than do national regulatory bodies," and should be more involved in articulating ethical standards and practices. Coincidence?

New Book on Research Confidentiality

Ted Palys and John Lowman have published Protecting Research Confidentiality: What Happens When Law and Ethics Collide.

[Palys, Ted, and John Lowman. Protecting Research Confidentiality: What Happens When Law and Ethics Collide. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 2014.]

Over the years, I've learned a great deal from these two scholars about the ethics and law of research confidentiality in the social sciences, and I look forward to reading this compendium of what they have learned from their studies and their own struggles with their university.

Briefly Noted: Whitney, Bell, Elliott

Lacking time for full comment, I briefly note the publication of these two important, critical essays. Citations omitted from the quoted passages.

Bell: Ethnography Shouldn't Be Like Victorian Sex

Writing in American Anthropologist, Kirsten Bell argues that ethnography should not be seen as a violation to which an informant must consent, and "although the concept of informed consent has now been enshrined in the AAA Code of Ethics for more than 15 years, the reality is that it is not an appropriate standard with which to judge ethnographic fieldwork."

[Bell, Kirsten. "Resisting Commensurability: Against Informed Consent as an Anthropological Virtue." American Anthropologist, July 21, 2014, doi:10.1111/aman.12122.]

TCPS Envy

How good is TCPS2, Canada's current framework of research regulation?

Martin Tolich, with co-authors, thinks it's pretty good. He suggests that at the very least, it can serve as a starting point for other countries interested in reforming their systems of research ethics oversight to make them more responsive to the concerns of social scientists and the people they study.

[Tolich, M, and BP Smith. “Evolving Ethics envy—New Zealand Sociologists Reading the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans.” Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online 9, no. 1 (2014): 1–10. doi:10.1080/1177083X.2013.867513; Hoonaard, Will C. van den, and Martin Tolich. “The New Brunswick Declaration of Research Ethics: A Simple and Radical Perspective.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 39, no. 1 (March 31, 2014): 87 – 98]

Canada: When the Subpoena Comes, Universities Should Pay for Independent Legal Advice

In guidance issued in April 2014, the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research finds that "In situations where safeguarding participant information may involve resisting an attempt by legal means to compel disclosure of confidential research information, TCPS 2 requires institutions to provide researchers with financial and other support to obtain independent legal advice or to ensure that such support is provided."

The announcement does not explicitly say so, but I imagine this is somehow a response to the University of Ottawa's earlier refusal to pay the legal costs of researchers who faced a subpoena. On the other hand, the new guidance addresses only "legal advice," not representation.

Quebec Court Shields Confidential Interview from Police

A Quebec court has quashed a search warrant for an interview given in confidence by accused killer Luka Magnotta to University of Ottawa researchers. The court agrees with the professors that "the public interest in protecting researcher-participant confidentiality in general, and in the specific circumstances of this case, clearly outweighs what minimal contribution, if any, the release of the seized items will make to the prosecution of the accused in the criminal proceeding." (2)

[Parent c. R., 2014 QCCS 132. h/t Will C. van den Hoonaard]

Gontcharov Reviews van den Hoonaard

Igor Gontcharov, a fellow participant in last year's Ethics Rupture conference, reviews Will van den Hoonaard's Seduction of Ethics and explains its relation to the conference's "New Brunswick Declaration."

[Igor Gontcharov, “Methodological Crisis in the Social Sciences: The New Brunswick Declaration as a New Paradigm in Research Ethics Governance?” Transnational Legal Theory 4, no. 1 (2013): 146–156. doi:10.5235/20414005.4.1.146.]

REB Members Beg U of Ottawa to Defend Confidentiality

IRB apologists sometimes argue that IRB review is necessary to ensure that universities will defend researchers and their participants from litigation. Boston College Subpoena News reminds us that ethics approval is no guarantee of such support.

[“News of Interest: Canadian Academics Strongly Defend Research Confidentiality, Call for University Support of Researchers.” Boston College Subpoena News, April 9, 2013. http://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/news-of-interest-canadian-academics-strongly-defend-research-confidentiality-call-for-university-support-of-researchers/.]