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Doctoral candidates discuss research ethics and politics 

By Karen Herland

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At the end of the second panel discussion investigating research practices, organized through the PhD in Humanities program, discussant Joel McKim underscored each of the panelists’ dissatisfactions with traditional research frameworks in the context of their own interdisciplinary research.

He noted that this was common ground for researchers involved in such a range of projects.

The PhD in Humanities, within the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, is a demanding program that places trailblazing research projects at the intersection of humanities, social sciences and fine arts.

Students usually work independently on projects so the panel series developed as a way to encourage exchange between students.

Organizer Christoph Brunner introduced the panel on Feb. 12 emphasizing that the impetus for the series was “to foster the notion of dialogues.” The format for each panel is short presentations, followed by a response from a faculty member (in this case communication studies lecturer McKim) and then an extended discussion.

The panel’s theme of Research, Ethics, Politics was addressed from very different perspectives. Josh Schwebel, an artist and researcher, began by questioning the presumptions of research ethics, suggesting that the limits a question "what is research" places on research confines us to frame our research in terms of knowledge and subjects. This undercuts efforts to encounter the unforeseeable. He went on to explain, using examples from his own work.

The next panelist, Ioana Radu, described her research spanning eight years in the community of Nemaska in the eastern James Bay Cree Nation as an ongoing exercise in learning to share authority. She rejected more traditional expectations of objectivity or distance on the part of researchers. Taking up Schwebel’s critique of prior framing she noted that studying a community requires close contact and an acknowledgment of the differing perspectives or positions within it, all generally overlooked within traditional research frameworks.

Eric Ronis spoke of “the tyranny of the narrative” and the traps of framing information in an authoritative way that “doesn’t allow for ambiguity or contradiction.”

There is also the trustworthiness of the narrator to contend with. Ronis interviewed people about the unity rally in Quebec in 1995 as part of his research into the theatrics of public protest. One interview subject remembered the rally’s defining moment as the inclusiveness represented by having then-Quebec Premier, and noted sovereignist, Jacques Parizeau address the crowd. Except, as Ronis pointed out, Parizeau never did address the crowd at that rally.

Devora Neumark, the last speaker, raised some of the considerations discussed at the Ethics of Research-Creation study day she co-hosted last January (see Journal, Jan. 28, 2010).

Returning to some of the cautions raised by Schwebel, she stressed that the purpose of ethics reviews might actually run counter to the aims of art practice.

“Ethics boards try to mitigate risk out of the equation,” she said, “But a large part of artistic practice is to evoke emotions and bring us to the edge.” Furthermore, Neumark pointed out how since only grants recipients within academia are held to these standards, there is a real possibility that artistic practice will develop differently inside and outside the academy.

Some of these issues were raised in a letter prepared by Neumark and Sandeep Bhagwati after the study day and circulated to artist-researchers in-and outside of the university. Over two-dozen have signed it and sent it to the Tri-Council as they consider changes to their ethics policy.

Meanwhile, the university’s Office of Research has also asked for more dialogue on the issue.