Chapter 1: Uncollapsing Ethics: Racialized Sciencism, Settler Coloniality, and an Ethical Framework of Decolonial Participatory Action Research

This chapter argues that the IRB process is just a small part of what social scientists must consider in conducting ethical research, and that without a more robust consideration of ethics, academe is complicit in expanding, extending, and legitimizing settler colonial projects under the auspices of scientifically based research production. We present an analysis of ethical considerations that are ignored by the IRB process and contextualize what we call decolonial participatory action research (DPAR). Decolonial research necessitates a posture to ethics that frames discussions of ethics away from an emphasis on procedures that attempt to safeguard individual rights and autonomy toward conversations about relational ethics in which partnership, commitment, accountability, and social justice are its central tenets. Decolonial participatory research ethical concepts are offered as alternatives to IRB-centered ethical analysis, focused on emboldening the public sphere and dismantling settler colonialism.