Research versus Ethics? Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities

Roundtable Osteuropa

With Nina Frieß, Lela Rekhviashvili and Hannah Guhlmann

Animal testing or the use of artificial intelligence – most people know about and have an opinion on the ethics of these two academic practices from medicine and computer science. But what happens when human societies and culture become the object of research? Human interview partners, experts or eyewitnesses, writers or activists are essential to data collection in the social sciences and humanities. In every phase of a research project, researchers need to think about how they can reconcile their need to generate and publish knowledge with their participants’ (and their own) need for safety. This is especially important when researchers are dealing with vulnerable groups, operating in authoritarian regimes or facing conflicts and war. In this episode, two researchers with years of experience in Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus share their views on research ethics in the social sciences.

(Music: “Complete” by Modul is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0-License.)

Speakers:

Nina Frieß (ZOiS): https://www.zois-berlin.de/en/about-us/staff/dr-nina-friess Lela Rekhviashvili (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, IfL): https://leibniz-ifl.de/en/institute-1/people/rekhviashvili-lela Moderation: Hannah Guhlmann (ZOiS)

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1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. First hand experiences and examples of challenging field work (00:03:21)

3. Conflict between research interests and the protection of participants? (00:07:52)

4. Planning research projects: how to mitigate risks from the beginning? (00:14:00)

5. Research and academic freedom in (East) Europe, South Caucasus & Central Asia (00:19:16)

6. Positionality (00:25:58)

7. Do's & Dont's (00:34:26)