ETHICS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH: DEVELOPING DISCIPLINE SPECIFIC AND CULTURALLY SENSITIVE PRACTICES

Abstract

Contextualizing knowledge has served to enhance our understanding of human progress. Several academicians and scholars have worked indigenously towards the ‘Think Locally and Act Globally’ mantra to normative approaches across academic disciplines. Recent academic progress led us to think, reflect and question the need for developing a protocol for culturally sensitive ethical practices in Social Sciences. This paper emerges from the deliberations held in a two-day National Symposium on Ethics in Social Science Research and Publication organized and hosted by the department of Human Development and Childhood Studies, Institute of Home Economics, University of Delhi. The paper explores the need for a discipline specific outline of ethical practices in research and debates the requirement for a protocol for the same. Drawing from various examples and dilemmas shared by social science experts, an array of missing links, gaps and epistemic variations are presented through the paper