The Ethical Implications of Community-Based Research

Researchers need to provide evidence that they have met ethical requirements before entering the field—rightly so, since the power and privilege embedded in academic researchers is considerable. However, given the calls for universities to decolonize and democratize research, we need to question whether the ethical norms developed to cater for objective, researcher-driven enquiries are appropriate and sufficient to ensure ethical conduct for qualitative designs that are more subjective, participatory, and community-based. This conceptual article argues for the need to rethink the standards against which ethics boards evaluate community-based research projects and suggests some ways this could be done.