This workshop aims to emphasize how a scholar's project or research may directly or indirectly affect real people in potentially harmful ways, in order to attempt to avoid causing people such harm.
Practicing ethics:
"Ethics can be thus considered a matter of methods. “Doing the right thing” is an everyday activity, as we make multiple choices about how we might act. Our decisions and actions transform into habits, norms, and rules over time and repetition. Our choices carry consequences. As researchers, we carry more responsibility than users of social media platforms. Why? Because we hold more cards when we present findings of studies and make knowledge statements intended to present some truth—big or little—about the world to others." (Annette Markham, "OKCupid data release fiasco: It’s time to rethink ethics education," 2016, emphasis added)
An "impact approach" foregrounds:
"... the possible or probable impact, rather than the prevention of impact in the first place. It acknowledges that we change the world as we conduct even the smallest of scientific studies, and therefore, we must take some personal responsibility for our methods." (Annette Markham, "OKCupid data release fiasco: It’s time to rethink ethics education," 2016)
This session, drawing from Markham (2016), will focus on three levels of impact:
- Direct impacts on people
- Ramifications of (re)producing categories
- Social, political and economic effects
Additionally, this workshop will address the range of impact, or the range of accessibility to your work:
- to people with disabilities,
- to people in different countries or who speak different languages, and
- in terms of cost and proprietary accessibility.
Source: Annette Markham, "OKCupid data release fiasco: It’s time to rethink ethics education," 2016