The procedures and practices of research ethics
Research ethics committees (REC) and the dynamics of change they have initiated in the social sciences have been the subject of critical study since the beginning of the new millennium. This article expands on this body of work with a focussed examination of the normative approach to research ethics, as outlined in the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS). This normativity is defined, first, by a description of the political and philosophical foundations of bioethics and, secondly, with a comparison of the moral principles and guidelines outlined in the TCPS with examples of investigative relationships taken from my personal research experience. This article argues that the TCPS, by virtue of its origins in bioethics, is an instrument that research ethics committees use to promote the idea of life as a biological reality to the detriment of the idea of life as a social and political reality. In my analysis, I present two instances of investigative relationship with participants, whose narratives value consensual negotiation and recognition that life is, indeed, a social and political fact. In addition to being the basis for the trust that motivates research participants, the process through which consent is negotiated may raise other issues that lead researchers to question their investigative methodologies and ethical presuppositions. Thus, for anthropologists and social scientists using ethnographic methods, the fields is a complex frame of reference in which procedure, practice and everyday experience overlap and complicate the work of researchers as they ponder matters relating to research ethics.