‘Distraction from the real difficulties’: ethical deliberations in international health research

Abstract

Increasingly, North based graduate students are seeking South based institutional homes whilst undertaking ethnographic research. Looking from a place in the global South, the article considers how requests to host such students influence, and are influenced by, both local and northern research ethics procedures. In particular the article focuses on the globalisation of the Institutional Review Board principle in defining much of the international landscape of ethical oversight, mainly because so much international health research funding is linked to northern institutions. We draw on a case study, the setting being an anthropological investigation by a northern researcher into health issues conducted in South Africa. The northern institution made a large investment in ethical oversight, but oriented it entirely towards limiting its legal liability. It was little concerned by ethical considerations posed by South African colleagues. This appears to have occurred because they were working from seemingly incommensurable reference points. We argue that, if we are to benefit from transnational excursions, debate about ethics must occur at a cross-national level. With research becoming globalised, and with varying actors across the globe, we are offered the possibility of transforming the currently dominant paradigm, based as it is on a logic of a northern donor and southern recipients of knowledge, to a more collaborative and equitable process.