Methods Dialogue: Ethics

This conversation between Patrick Anderson and Natalie Alvarez focuses on how to do collaborative research, bridge incommensurable differences through understanding, and enjoin researchers’ subjectivity with those with whom they are in conversation. Featured situations for ethical consideration include community–police liaisons and consulting on police training. Considering the tensions between the professional prerogatives of the researcher and the ethics of the participant–observer relationship, one must ask who the research is for, who benefits from it, and how to present, experience, and advocate ethical alignments. Academics’ labour, situatedness, and intersectionality may affect Institutional Review Board (IRB) processes and the stakes of working with communities and academic institutions.