August 2

Conducting ethical research requires attention to the concerns of diverse research populations. Effectively engaging populations that face marginalization in everyday encounters must be achieved in a manner that is safe and beneficial for both individuals and communities across all stages of research. Social and systemic vulnerabilities experienced by individuals and communities in daily life have the potential to sharpen nuanced ethical tensions within the research context itself, bringing to bear the need to explore more non-traditional ethical dimensions of engagement.

Three core topics direct course content:

1. The ethics of exploring stigma and marginalization within the qualitative research process

• We will explore how researchers can reflect on their own identities and intersecting positionalities to best navigate stigma and marginalization within the research process.

2. Qualitative participants as experts: rethinking the moral authority of experience

• We will discuss ways researchers can prioritize lived experiences and insider perspectives of participants and researchers from marginalized groups.

3. Advancing and expanding ethical dissemination

• We consider broader strategies for giving back to the community, reframing stigmatizing language in dissemination products and tailoring results to a range of audiences, including the communities we partner with and academic journals.

Through this course, participants will enhance their approach to advancing equity. Using a critical ethics of care in research fosters collaborative work across disciplines and strengthens partnerships with community organizations, government entities, and other experts.

The course draws from key concepts and processes discussed in these publications:

• Gunn, A. (2022). Stigma, surveillance, and wounded healing: Promoting a critical ethics of care in research with formerly incarcerated Black women. Journal of Community Psychology, 50(8), 3438-3454.
• Hardesty, M., & Gunn, A. J. (2019). Survival sex and trafficked women: The politics of re-presenting and speaking about others in anti-oppressive qualitative research. Qualitative social work, 18(3), 493-513.
• Gunn, A. (2022). Testimonies and Healing: Anti-oppressive Research with Black Women and the Implications for Compassionate Ethical Care.
• Fletcher, F. E., K. S. Ray, V. A. Brown, and P. T. Smith, eds Hastings Center Report, 52, S42-S45.
• Fletcher FE, Rice WS, Ingram LA, Fisher CB. Ethical Challenges and Lessons Learned from Qualitative Research with Low-Income African American Women Living with HIV in the South. J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2019;30(4S):116-129. doi:10.1353/hpu.2019.0122
• Fletcher FE, Lapite FC, Best A. Rethinking the Moral Authority of Experience: Critical Insights and Reflections from Black Women Scholars. Am J Bioeth.2023;23(1):27-30. doi:10.1080/15265161.2022.2146807