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Bridging Guidelines and Practice: Toward a Grounded Care Ethics in Youth Participatory Action Research*

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Abstract

Based on youth participatory action research with Colombian street girls, I illustrate discrepancies between human subjects protection guidelines and practice in youth research, providing guidance for operationalizing federal Office of Human Research Protection regulations in geographic research. I problematize taken-for-granted human subjects definitions including childhood, vulnerability, protection, and consent, all of which rely on context-specific assumptions that do not hold across all places and circumstances. Through the enactment of a care ethics practice in fieldwork, I suggest that geographers can move toward more truly critical research praxis by making socially responsible action in the field the driving force of “subject” protection.

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... Critical scholars have suggested that the ethics standards in federal human subjects protection guidelines, while ostensibly framing children and youth as a vulnerable population in need of protection, in fact exclude young people, position them as unable to make sound decisions, and place them beneath university researchers in the hierarchy of expertise (Ritterbusch, 2012). Although framed as protecting youth who are vulnerable or "at risk" in research, the protective and liability-focused framework inherent in the way IRBs approach research with youth participants is steeped in adultism and views youth "as risks" to be mitigated. ...
... Scholars have worked to chart a path forward for participatory approaches (Kidd et al., 2018;Lal, et al., 2019) and have noted the key role that social scientists can play in forwarding ethical and meaningful participatory work (Collins, et al., 2018;Ritterbusch, 2012); we echo these calls and caution that without attention to disrupting structures that impede meaningful participation of youth in academic research partnerships, university researchers may be left behind by youth activists who are mobilizing in unprecedented ways. Here, we frame opportunities to better prepare the academy to meet youth "where they are" to support and amplify existing advocacy. ...
... Though such "local workarounds" can be useful to move individual projects through the IRB process, a more systematic process will be necessary to begin to chip away at adultist and oppressive structures within the academy that interfere with research centered on equity. Ritterbusch (2012) suggests "reframing and humanizing subject protection discourse and practice so that the federal guidelines we use to protect the well-being of participants reflect, instead of essentialize or stigmatize, the everyday realities and geographies of the research population" (p. 22). ...
Article
In this manuscript, we explore the promise and challenges of youth participatory action research (YPAR), paying particular attention to ethical issues and power dynamics that emerge in the context of research partnerships between youth and adults. We begin by reviewing the key tenets of YPAR and then go on to discuss how these tenets are often at odds with dominant approaches to research. We describe the tension between the values of YPAR and the systems and structures embedded in the academy. Further, we elucidate how adultism and the capitalist nature of the academy intersect with white supremacy culture, posing significant barriers to meaningful youth participation in community research partnerships. We then describe ways in which participatory scholars can disrupt these systems as well as larger paradigm shifts in the culture of academia that will be required to elevate youth voices and to amplify their efforts for equity. A recent surge in youth activism may provide opportunities for youth‐focused scholars to engage. Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) may be a useful vehicle for amplifying youth voice. Adultism and incompatible structures in academia pose barriers to youth engagement in research. An emphasis on systems‐level change will be necessary to move YPAR forward.
... The narratives of violence included in the following section were prioritized through a youth-driven participatory action research (YPAR) process that involved the intensive training of a street-connected and university-based team of youth researchers (two postgraduate students and four street-connected youth) in the use of qualitative and visual methods (see Cahill, 2007;Ritterbusch, 2012;Ritterbusch et al., 2020). ...
... Beyond the institutional ethical minimum practices of informed consent, assent and safeguarding procedures, participatory scholars call for the incorporation of a care ethics practice to guide the design and implementation of all activities within the YPAR process (Cahill, 2007;Ritterbusch, 2012). A care ethics framework encourages all members of the YPAR collective to center relationship-building as a key practice of ensuring the well-being of all those involved with the research process. ...
Article
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Background: Violence against children (VAC) remains an urgent global dilemma and researchers and policymakers alike continue to work tirelessly to devise strategies aiming to end VAC. However, the perspectives and expertise of children themselves remain underrepresented in the drafting and implementation of these strategies against VAC. This paper draws attention to the marginalization of children living outside of family care and centers their perspective. Objective: This study aimed to characterize the forms of violence experienced by children living outside the family setting in Uganda, from the perspective of children themselves. The paper seeks to position the voicing of this perspective as a form of resistance against VAC from a decolonial perspective. Participants and setting: The participatory research process included a total of 94 participants in various urban study sites in Kampala, Uganda. Methods: The research team completed this qualitative study within a youth-driven participatory action research (YPAR) framework. Data collection techniques included interviews, focus groups, participatory visual methods and social cartography. Results: Children living outside of family care experience grave forms of emotional, physical and sexual violence. Child participants present survival strategies that can inform future research and policies on violence prevention practice. Conclusions: The illustration of explicit violence outlined in this study represents a form of resistance children take against their perpetrators. The participatory youth researcher team urges future research and policy addressing VAC in Uganda to center these perspectives and expertise of children and adolescents in both programmatic and research initiatives aiming to end violence against children.
... I was concerned about the care of my participants before, during and after the fieldwork (attentiveness). I recognised the participants' own understanding of care as a relational relationship described by Ritterbusch (2012). The responsibility of meeting their needs was primary mine but I also recognised their agency in the process and how they also cared for me during the process. ...
... They needed information of why their family reunification procedures were being denied and they needed to be recognised as experts of family reunification in Brazil that should participate actively if we were aiming to improve the Brazilian family reunification policy. Ritterbusch (2012) reflects on how considering populations as vulnerable creates separation between researchers and participants which prevents notions of empowerment, inclusion and social change emerging in the field. ...
Article
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Ethical discussions have become key to Refugee Studies. However, most of this literature focuses on research with refugees in developed countries or refugee camps in the Majority World countries. Recommendations and experiences of researchers in the Global North do not completely grasp the challenges and opportunities for researchers from the Majority World conducting research with refugees in the Majority World. This paper discusses my experience of “doing-no-harm” research with 20 refugees in the city of São Paulo, Brazil in 2018. These interviews allowed me to understand the lived experience of refugees applying for family reunification in a first asylum country in Latin America. They also demanded new ethical and methodological decisions and dialogues. My reflection contributes to this literature on ethics and refugee studies and “ethics in practice” by bringing new ethical and methodological reflections considering trust-building, sampling, reflexivity, amplifying refugees’ voices and confidentiality from a South-South perspective.
... Participants were recruited through our local partner and were given an incentive of $15 USD, a reasonable amount to compensate their time per Colombian standards. Participants were given incentives to acknowledge their time investment in the research as contributors according to our PAR framework [69]. All participants provided verbal consent to participate, including underaged emancipated adolescents. ...
... Written informed consent was not obtained given participants' weariness to sign documents, disclose personal information and trust institutions including academia. Our ethical approach to the research is based on participatory care ethics [69], which promotes socially responsible action through the re-defining of subjects as active participants instead of vulnerable subjects [72]. Our approach draws from previous work of collective praxis [73,74]. ...
Article
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Gender, violence, and migration structurally impact health. The Venezuelan humanitarian crisis comprises the largest transnational migration in the history of the Americas. Colombia, a post-conflict country, is the primary recipient of Venezuelans. The Colombian context imposes high levels of violence on women across migration phases. There is little information on the relationship between violence and HIV risk in the region and how it impacts these groups. Evidence on how to approach the HIV response related to Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis is lacking. Our study seeks to 1) understand how violence is associated with newly reported HIV/AIDS case rates for women in Colombian municipalities; and 2) describe how social violence impacts HIV risk, treatment, and prevention for Venezuelan migrant and refugee women undergoing transnational migration and resettlement in Colombia. We conducted a concurrent mixed-methods design. We used negative binomial models to explore associations between social violence proxied by Homicide Rates (HR) at the municipality level (n = 84). The also conducted 54 semi-structured interviews with Venezuelan migrant and refugee women and key informants in two Colombian cities to expand and describe contextual vulnerabilities to HIV risk, prevention and care related to violence. We found that newly reported HIV cases in women were 25% higher for every increase of 18 homicides per 100,000, after adjusting for covariates. Upon resettlement, participants cited armed actors’ control, lack of government accountability, gender-based violence and stigmatization of HIV as sources of increased HIV risk for VMRW. These factors impose barriers to testing, treatment and care. Social violence in Colombian municipalities is associated with an increase in newly reported HIV/AIDS case rates in women. Violence hinders Venezuelan migrant and refugee women’s access and engagement in available HIV prevention and treatment interventions.
... Ideally, PAR leads to a series of actions and reflections where researchers and community activists establish relationships, set project roles, research questions, complete the research analysis, and carry out actions resulting from the projects. It has been utilized in geography projects involving subjects from street youth in Colombia (Ritterbusch, 2012) to an environmental study of British watersheds (Whitman et al., 2015). It can also be used as a framework for servicelearning projects in a classroom setting (Pain et al., 2013). ...
... However, even approaching these goals can significantly enhance the usefulness of the outcomes to the community (Klocker, 2012). Mason (2015) and Ritterbusch (2012) suggest that an ''ethics of care'' be used in PAR collaborations, focusing on the development of caring connections and friendships between researchers, community activists, and research subjects, rather than the ''ethics of justice'' that is a basis of most human subject protection systems. ...
Article
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Community Geography offers researchers, community groups, and students opportunities to engage in action oriented applied geographical research. Creating and sustaining these research programs can be challenging, programs can involve many partners from both academic and the community, have different goals and purposes, and utilize a variety of methods to perform research. In this paper we offer a framework of three primary overarching principles for implementing CG projects; (1) Who, (2) Why, and (3) How. (1) “Who” describes who is involved in CG, including researchers, community partners, academic institutions, (2) “Why” describes the justifications and benefits of taking this approach. (3) “How” explains how CG borrows methodologies from many disciplines within geography and beyond. Our examples are not exhaustive; rather, they serve as starting points to inspire researchers interested in CG.
... Considerable attention has been given to the methodological issues and ethical considerations of conducting research with marginalized children in general and street-connected 4 children in particular (Aptekar & Heinonen, 2003;Beazley & Ennew, 2006;Bennouna et al., 2017;Bordonaro & Payne, 2012;Christensen & Prout, 2002;Ennew, 1994;Hopkins, 2008;Morrow & Richards, 1996;O'Kane, 2003;Thomas de Benitez, 2001Van Blerk & Ansell, 2007;Vans Beers, 1996;Young & Barrett, 2001). Scholars in the past have called to give children control over the research process through the destabilization of generational hierarchies and by differentiating their decision-making capacity and power in crucial moments that shape both the outcomes and impact of the project (Alderson, 1995;Alderson & Morrow, 2008;Christensen, 2004;Morrow, 2008;Punch, 2002;Ritterbusch, 2012;Sime, 2008;Skelton, 2008;Williamson et al., 2005). ...
... In the design of our project in Kampala we were careful to avoid tokenism; however, the challenges of sustainability (i.e., when the research funding runs out and/or funding priorities shift in the global NGO scene) to ensure the continuation of our contact zone in the streets and in policy spaces presented significant roadblocks in our YPAR process. We urge scholars working with children in adversity in general, and children outside of family care in particular, to move beyond theoretical discussions of their lives and experiences of violence and toward long-term YPAR endeavors that make space to enable young people to speak for themselves and propose ways of catalyzing social change in their daily lives that can be scaled up to collective strategies against violence in the policy realm (Ritterbusch, 2012(Ritterbusch, , 2013. In terms of the use of participatory approaches in research as a means of informing decision-making in child welfare policy, the act of listening to children is the first step in involving them as agents of change in policies that seek to improve their lives and well-being. ...
Article
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Background Violence against children (VAC) in Uganda is recognized as an urgent dilemma; however, most research has been quantitatively oriented and has seldom involved children in the research process. Objective We discuss what we learned about child participation in the research process as a means of informing ethical praxis in future child- and youth-led research initiatives. As an overarching aim of this paper, we utilize our engagement with YPAR as a springboard to reflect on methodological best practices for VAC research that involve children themselves as part of a movement to democratize the research process. Participants and Setting The study includes street-connected children (40), sexually exploited children (19) and domestic workers (34) in Kampala. Methods The YPAR team led participant observation, 52 semi-structured life history interviews, 31 auto-photographic exercises, and 4 focus groups. All data collection, analysis and dissemination activities were led by the YPAR team including four Ugandan street-connected youth between the ages of 16–25 and two Ugandan university-trained youth researchers. Results The results are framed as a methodological reflection regarding the complexities and transformative potential of including children as researchers in the framework of YPAR. Conclusions We urge scholars to create spaces for sustainable YPAR movements, both in academic and policy arenas, and to design participatory initiatives that prioritize knowledge produced by and for the improvement of children’s lives globally. We encourage challenging traditional, extractive research practices through participatory approaches that carve out spaces for child participation in research.
... El cuidado debe ser acompañado de la constancia. El abandono es fatal para la reproducción de las éticas del cuidado, no podemos estar siempre en el campo, así que hay que trabajar con las comunidades para construir redes de apoyo que puedan expandirse sin presencia de los investigadores (Ritterbusch 2011). ...
... Cabe anotar que los marcos éticos tradicionales de investigación se basan en protocolos de ciencias naturales, especialmente médicos . Los científicos sociales tienden a reducir sus estrategias éticas en consentimientos informados y pasan por alto las emociones involucradas en los procesos de investigación (Ritterbusch 2011), estos marcos deben ser reformados para la reflexión sobre la IAP. Denunciar las malas prácticas es tan necesario como resaltar las positivas. ...
Article
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Objetivo/contexto: Se hace un análisis de las metodologías participativas a partir del caso de una ONG (de la que la autora hizo parte), que tuvo que ser liquidada debido a graves fallas resultantes por los riesgos de uso de estas metodologías y el sistema de financiamiento de este tipo de organizaciones. El análisis tiene en cuenta las metodologías feministas y participativas con las que se fundó la organización, se revisan las fallas que se generaron y se proponen consideraciones frente al uso de estos métodos. Metodología: El artículo se escribe a partir de la experiencia personal de la autora como miembro y cofundadora de la ONG y de una revisión bibliográfica acorde a las temáticas tratadas que dan soporte a las ideas que se presentan. Conclusiones: Las metodologías participativas surgen como una forma de “dar voz” a comunidades históricamente marginadas y buscan aproximaciones comprometedoras con la justicia social. Sin embargo, el trabajo en una ONG genera en la práctica nuevos retos, especialmente relacionados con la financiación. Por lo tanto, es importante considerar previamente estos retos y decidir las metas de crecimiento y financiación a futuro, para así evitar caer en estas fallas comunes. Originalidad: Este análisis resulta relevante debido a que es un tema poco explorado y que puede tener graves implicaciones tanto para poblaciones beneficiarias de ONG como para los investigadores involucrados.
... The requirement of guardians to give consent for their children impacts their autonomy and is potentially paradoxical to the human rights of participatory practices (Public Health Association of Canada, 2011). In future research we aim to work with our institutional REB to align more readily with the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (Government of Canada, 2019) that does not have an age minimum for the consent process, yet is more dependent on ensuring the participants have competencies to understand the risk and benefits of their research participation, as well as their rights regarding confidentiality and anonymity (Chabot et al., 2012;Ritterbusch, 2012). However, we recognize that requirements of consent vary across different health and education sectors and this may depend on system barriers outside of our control. ...
Article
We examined students’ perspectives on well-being and youth engagement in schools using a Youth Participatory Action Research approach. Students (N = 11) trained as peer researchers and then interviewed their peers. Interviews (N = 21) were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and six themes were developed: desire for versus reality of a healthy school, insufficient school strategies to promote well-being and mitigate harm, listening to and actioning students’ ideas, diverse opportunities for student engagement, pre-conceived ideas of student capability, and importance of a support role. Through this project, we peered deeper into students’ viewpoints about well-being and youth engagement in their schools.
... Our participatory approach is based in long-term relationships with community partners and grass-roots organizations (Cahill, 2010;Ritterbusch, 2012). Community partners co-designed and co-implemented every step of the methodology with the rest of the research team, centering their concerns and know-how (Cahill, 2010) (for more information on our methods see elsewhere (C Correa-Salazar et al., 2023)). ...
Article
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Venezuelan migrant and refugee women and girls (VMRWG) face risks of exposure to and infection from HIV and threats of multiple forms of violence (including GBV) during and after migration. Yet, there is a lack of evidence on barriers and facilitators to VMRWGs’ access to HIV prevention and care services this population at all stages of their migration. We addressed this evidence gap by conducting a qualitative study composed of fifty-four semi-structured interviews with practitioners (n = 24) and VMRWG (n = 30) in the two largest receiving cities of migrants in Colombia. We sought to identify perceived barriers and facilitators to HIV prevention and care to inform policies and programmatic efforts. Analysis followed a theory-informed approach using the Socioecological Model. Findings describe multi-level barriers to access to HIV prevention and care related to discrimination, gender-based violence, rigid gender norms, lack of information and system fragmentation. Policies that integrate community-based networks and support intersectoral work are pivotal to breach the gaps between services and communities and develop a gender-sensitive approach that tackles the relationship between gender-based violence and HIV risk.
... Further, staff and students may be incentivised to attend precisely because executive leadership is in attendance. To promote EDI through the unconference, it will be essential to moderate power dynamics between academic staff and students in the process and planning of the unconference to enable multivocality and multi-capability (Cahill, 2015;Ritterbusch, 2012). We found that the intentional focus on moderating power not only supports the SaP process but informs the outputs of the unconference as well. ...
Article
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We describe the critical-digital approach and co-design of a bespoke unconference on inclusion, diversity, and equity for staff and students. We offer a critical digital pedagogy framework that engages and promotes student-led equity, diversity, and inclusion in what we refer to as the fourth wave of students as partners (SaP) conferences. The SaP unconference was unique in several ways. The unconference was aimed at both staff and students and was designed and delivered in a cross-disciplinary students-as-partners project. This forum was transformative as it was supported by a critical digital partnership and pedagogical framework. Further, the unconference positioned the audience as participants on equal footing with panellists in critical dialogue and conversation. As such, the unconference offered a counter-narrative to traditional conference culture. Reinventing the academic conference space for SaP is critical to ensure conferences are authentic, contextualised instantiations of partnership.
... How do we acknowledge the needs and issues of others in the research process, thus emphasizing that the research is an encounter with people who might have different boundaries and requests? These questions resonate with the call for a care ethics raised by an increasing number of scholars in human geography (e.g., Lawson 2007;Conradson 2011;Ritterbusch 2012;Askins and Blazek 2017). According to Lawson (2007, 3), "Care ethics begins with a social ontology of connection: foregrounding social relationships of mutuality and trust (rather than dependence). ...
Article
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Building on critical readings of the rationalities behind ethical committees and their guidelines, this article analyzes how their positivist, biomedical conception of the research process can have a negative impact on research participants who might perceive their voices erased by these institutional practices. Using examples from my recent research with gay men living with HIV in England and Italy, I show how research participants have contested the General Data Protection Regulation guidelines I was following in relation to the use of pseudonyms and the depersonalization of data and the sharing of interview transcripts. Questioning the fixity of the position of the researcher and the research participants assumed in ethical guidelines, the article explores the impact of the encounter with research participants on the researcher’s life course well beyond data collection and analysis, emphasizing the need for a different care ethics.
... Such ethics tend to be characterized by dialogue, reciprocity, and the maintenance of trust, which is often the basis for the relationship with research participants 10 . This approach of ethics is shared by other qualitative social sciences (see for example Burton-Jeangros 2017, Ritterbusch 2012). However, pro-10 As demonstrated by Martina Avanza (2008) through her research on a xenophobic movement, not every relationship in anthropological research is characterized by empathy and mutual trust. ...
Article
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This paper analyses the new legal provisions impacting qualitative research practices and contributing to the institutionalization of research ethics in Switzerland. After contextualizing the emergence of new forms of research regulation, it shows how their epistemological assumptions challenge anthropology. It then explores the issues related to the articulation between procedural ethics and processual ethics. Finally, it discusses the different postures which might possibly be adopted by scholars in anthropology and other qualitative social sciences.
... La investigación académica con poblaciones jóvenes e infantiles en la última década ha utilizado metodologías participativas para incluir las voces de niños, niñas, adolescentes y jóvenes en representación de sus realidades socioespaciales Holt, 2007;. La metodología de Investigación Acción Participativa (IAP) con poblaciones jóvenes (Youth-based Participatory Action Research -YPAR) presenta varias herramientas para realizar investigación con niños, niñas, adolescentes y jóvenes (Cahill, 2007;Cahill et al., 2008;Ritterbusch, 2012). Basándose en proyectos participativos a nivel internacional como ...
... Furthermore, the process used for determining eligibility is consistent with current international recommendations, which state that adolescents' ability to meaningfully participate in the consent process is informed by their cultural and experiential context (Alderson 2007;Petersen and Leffert 1995). Given the independence and responsibility required of street-living children and children living in residential care institutions, it is within accepted reason to argue that adolescents in these situations are mature minors capable of making informed choices (Ritterbusch 2012). ...
Article
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Two national household surveys, the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, drive assessment of the Millennium Development Goals, Poverty Reduction Strategies, and other major international platforms in most low- and middle-income countries. However, little attention has been given to the fact that household surveys are limited to people living in households, therefore excluding some of the world’s most vulnerable populations including the homeless, people living in institutions, and migrant laborers. The situation of children living outside of households is particularly precarious because many of these children are also outside of families or in families that cannot adequately care for them. Deprivation and stress related to these early life experiences can negatively affect health and productivity across the life course. This article reviews the issues facing children outside of households and argues for the importance of gathering robust data about this population to formulate responsive policies and services, mobilize resources, and foster accountability. Cambodia is highlighted to illustrate the recent work that the government has undertaken to quantify two key subgroups of children outside of households: children living in residential care institutions and homeless children living on the street or in other public places. The methods, ethical considerations, and implications of Cambodia’s enumeration are discussed.
... Furthermore, the process used for determining eligibility is consistent with current international recommendations, which state that adolescents' ability to meaningfully participate in the consent process is informed by their cultural and experiential context (Alderson 2007;Petersen and Leffert 1995). Given the independence and responsibility required of street-living children and children living in residential care institutions, it is within accepted reason to argue that adolescents in these situations are mature minors capable of making informed choices (Ritterbusch 2012). ...
Conference Paper
Two national household surveys, the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, drive assessment of the Millennium Development Goals, Poverty Reduction Strategies and other major international platforms in low- and middle-income countries. However, little attention has been given to the fact that household surveys are limited to people living in households, therefore excluding some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, including the homeless, people living in institutions, and migrant laborers. This paper presents methods and results from a recent collaboration between Columbia University and Cambodia’s National Institute of Statistics to quantify two key sub-groups of children outside of households: children living in residential care institutions and homeless urban children. Data collection emphasized triangulation from multiple sources and calculation of statistical measures of accuracy. Developing surveillance mechanisms to enumerate and track children outside of households is critical to formulating responsive policies and services, mobilizing resources and fostering accountability.
... Through each of the phases, the ethical framework underpinning this project seeks to move beyond the consideration of research ethics as limited to institutional ethics and informed consent procedures and towards a more comprehensive care ethics practice that prioritises empathy, mutual understanding, and respect in the development of relationships with participants and the broader research community (Ritterbusch, 2012). ...
Article
This paper presents the participatory visual research design and findings from a qualitative assessment of the social impact of bazuco and inhalant/glue consumption among street youth in Bogotá, Colombia. The paper presents the visual methodologies our participatory action research (PAR) team employed in order to identify and overcome the stigmas and discrimination that street youth experience in society and within state-sponsored drug rehabilitation programmes. I call for critical reflection regarding the broad application of the terms ‘participation’ and ‘participatory’ in visual research and urge scholars and public health practitioners to consider the transformative potential of PAR for both the research and practice of global public health in general and rehabilitation programmes for street-based substance abuse in Colombia in particular. The paper concludes with recommendations as to how participatory visual methods can be used to promote social inclusion practices and to work against stigma and discrimination in health-related research and within health institutions. Key words: Inhalant and bazuco addiction, participatory action research (PAR), Latin America, institutional stigma, street youth Permalink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2016.1141971
... La investigación académica con poblaciones jóvenes e infantiles en la última década ha utilizado metodologías participativas para incluir las voces de niños, niñas, adolescentes y jóvenes en representación de sus realidades socioespaciales Holt, 2007;. La metodología de Investigación Acción Participativa (IAP) con poblaciones jóvenes (Youth-based Participatory Action Research -YPAR) presenta varias herramientas para realizar investigación con niños, niñas, adolescentes y jóvenes (Cahill, 2007;Cahill et al., 2008;Ritterbusch, 2012). Basándose en proyectos participativos a nivel internacional como ...
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La explotación sexual, la trata de personas y el “turismo sexual” son fenómenos que continúan aumentando y que afectan especialmente a niñas, niños, adolescentes y jóvenes. A pesar de la amplia legislación que existe al respecto, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional, en la práctica su implementación se ha demostrado inefectiva. El presente estudio geoetnográfico parte de la metodología de Investigación Acción Participativa (IAP) para trabajar con comunidades afectadas en Bogotá de manera horizontal y plantear nuevas perspectivas y recomendaciones de política. El ejercicio visibiliza la amplitud del fenómeno de trata a nivel interno nacional y la diversidad de tipos de explotación y victimización más allá de los descritos por la ley. Se recomienda el diseño de una política pública integral que busque implementar las normas existentes a la luz de las voces y testimonios de las comunidades afectadas. Sexual exploitation, human trafficking and sex tourism are continuously growing and especially affect children, adolescents and young people. Despite the existing legislation, both nationally (in Colombia) and internationally, it has been proven that implementation protocols are ineffective. This study was conducted within a Participatory Action Research (PAR or IAP for its Spanish acronym) frame in order to work horizontally with affected communities in Bogotá and offer new perspectives and public policy recommendations. The study discusses the diversity of types of exploitation and victimization outside of those described by the law. Recommendations include the construction of integral public policies to implement existing norms with the guidance of the voices and testimonies of the affected communities.
... Limited time allocation for the subject should be overcome and enriched with varying strategies, in terms of policy and learning process. The existence of the subject should not only be taken as merely another subject on its own but more than that, it is connected to other subjects too (Ritterbusch, 2012). Therefore, the time portion for religious understanding should be more accommodating to such policies. ...
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There is a need to enhance school culture and its surrounding area to support of teaching and learning. Therefore, this research was conducted to identify how high schools in Malang City, Indonesia create their neighbourhood to maintain the process of learning. Qualitative approach was implemented during research circles. Moreover, multisite data collection was research conduction. Research was conducted in five high schools in Malang City, East Java, Indonesia; they are SMAN 1, SMAN 3, SMAN 4, SMA Shalahuddin dan SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Malang. The process to shape religious culture through two main strategies namely: (a) instructive sequential strategy and (b) constructive sequential strategy. The first strategy (i.e. instructive sequential strategy) is the efforts to put the structural instructions aspect into practice. Meanwhile, the second strategy (i.e. constructive sequential strategy) is the efforts to build the schools’ religious culture.
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Introduction Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is an approach to conducting research with youth populations in order to effectively engage youth in research that impacts their lives. Young people experiencing homelessness (YEH) are vulnerable to power and social environments in ways that call attention to their experiences in research. Methods The context for this paper was a qualitative YPAR project to incorporate youth voice into the operations of a larger research study that hired youth as researchers. Participant-researchers provided feedback and consultation with senior staff in order to improve their access to resources, safety, and stability. Results Themes that emerged from thematic analysis of reflections, discussions, and meetings showed the need for consistent access to food, the risk of environmental violence targeting youth researchers, the structural and experiential barriers to professional engagement, and the benefits that young researchers experienced as part of their work in the study. Discussion Recommendations and lessons learned are described, notably to ensure that youth are paid and provided food, to construct effective safety plans during fieldwork, and to provide a flexible, inclusive, trauma-responsive approach to supervision of project tasks.
Chapter
Research with children and young people is underpinned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) which states children and young people have the right to have a say on things that concern them (Article 12) in a way that they feel they can best express themselves (Article 13). At a practical and ethical level, this means that concerns around children and young people’s vulnerability should not limit their participation in research. Rather, researchers (and policy makers, health professionals, educationalists, etc.) should find ways and methods of including children and young people in research that upholds their views on things that are important to them, whilst offering safe passage in doing this. Not including children and young people in research can result in harm when their views are not taken into account in policy, program, service planning and delivery; diminish their autonomy; and result in interventions that may not reflect the needs of children and young people as the end user. This chapter offers insights into some of the ethical considerations when undertaking participatory research with children and young people, including questions of participation, representation, diversity, cultural contexts, dissemination, digital spaces as well as the “nuts and bolts” of research. This includes discussions on informed consent, assent, and dissent, the role of gate keepers, preparing children and youth researchers to undertake participatory research, and renumeration and dissemination of findings.
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The Venezuelan crisis has unleashed multiple forms of sociopolitical violence against its population and created a context of unmet needs, insecurity, and human rights violations. Outward migration caused by this situation has been linked to health emergencies in neighboring countries. Venezuelan migrant and refugee women and girls (VMRWG) are among the most affected. We conducted a cross-sectional qualitative and Participatory Action Research (PAR) project to characterize the risk environments for VMRWG across migration phases, analyzing pre-departure, transit, border crossing, and resettlement risk factors for health and security through semi-structured interviews ( n = 30) and human cartographies ( n = 16). We found cross border risk and protective factors that inform cross-border health initiatives, migration policies, and human rights efforts for both the migrant and host communities. Findings and Recommendations Migratory trajectories of VMRWG from Venezuela to Colombia represent a risk environment for women and girls, connecting cross-border contexts through armed actors’ control, culturally reinforced gender roles and limited social and economic resources. Long-term sustainable migratory policies that are culturally sensitive and include a gender-approach to health should operationalize how gender roles are intimately connected to HIV risk and mental health disparities through reinforced structural factors. Such policies must address these structural factors. The public health system needs to incorporate and align with programmatic efforts implemented by international platforms (United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), AID4AIDS, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also known as Doctors Without Borders) targeting screening for infectious diseases (including HIV and mental health disparities) in border crossings and borderlands. Sustainable policies to bridge gaps between services and populations and to decrease growing HIV cases depends on these strategies. Policies and programs of local governments (city and municipality level) addressing mental health disparities need to be expanded through peer leaders and civil society networks of care to guarantee wellbeing and quality of life after resettlement. International efforts and collaborations should capitalize on the re-opening of the border to establish inter-sectoral collaborations with Venezuelan NGOs and civil society organizations on both sides of the border to address gender-based violence, follow-up of cases, and access to services in sending and receiving communities. In order to broach gaps and tackle access barriers in resettlement communities in Colombia, services must be provided in peripheric territories and neighborhoods where some vulnerable migrants resettle. These services must rely on health sector-community collaborations. Public health sector efforts should be integrated and coordinated with family and child services on a local and national level Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF), gender working groups, shelters, and citywide supported initiatives like the House of Women) to provide and promote access to social resources (education, jobs, and housing) for migrant women. Health promotion strategies are necessary to decrease infectious diseases and violence-related trauma among migrants across borders. These strategies can include outreach through peer leaders, civil society organization campaigns, and HIV mobile testing and counselling. These services should be delivered in a culturally sensitive manner, capitalizing on in-place cross-border networks of support. In Colombia, sustainable efforts in policy and programs have been made to provide Venezuelans with access to health care and social services with the help of inter-sectoral working groups, national laws, and border commissions. However, there is an urgent need to expand the humanitarian response and the health sector coverage to gender-based violence impacting infectious disease risk and mental health trauma in host communities. Connecting pre- and post-migration contexts in South-to-South migration is paramount. Tackling these issues can improve the protection of human rights and resettlement conditions in host communities.
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Research on a sensitive and potentially stigmatising topic such as ‘radicalisation’ begs for a robust ethical framework. Ethical procedures, issuing from an institutional ethics commission, are not sufficient to manage these risks. Arguably, collaborative and participatory research is best suited to overcome the risks of doing research on such a sensitive topic as well as the hierarchy and inequality in the relationship between researchers, gatekeepers and participants. To co-construct a participatory ethical framework in this context, 22 social workers were asked about the core ethical values of their own professional context. In this paper, these social work ethics are brought in tension with the practice of doing research. The paper concludes with the insight that social work ethics are not transferrable to the research context in a straightforward manner. Hierarchy and inequality (as well as much frustration) will persist if only this strategy is adopted.
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Ini adalah buku pegangan mengenai cara-cara etis dalam melibatkan anak-anak dalam penelitian Anda di Indonesia dan bagaimana agar anak-anak dapat berpartisipasi secara bermakna dalam penelitian Anda. Buku ini dikembangkan oleh sekelompok peneliti multidisipliner dan praktisi program dari Indonesia atau yang telah lama bekerja di berbagai daerah di Indonesia. Selain didasarkan pada pengalaman kerja lapangan bertahun-tahun, buku ini telah melalui pembahasan dan konsultasi dengan teman-teman peneliti, pelaksana program, dan mitra pembangunan, semua bekerja dalam isu perlindungan dan kualitas hidup anak. Kami harap buku ini juga bermanfaat bagi pihak-pihak yang bekerja dalam atau dengan kapasitas tersebut.
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If you want to work ethically with children in your research in Indonesia and/or are curious about how children can meaningfully participate in research, this handbook is for you. This handbook was developed by a group of multidisciplinary research and program practitioners who are of Indonesian origin or have worked for a significant period of time in different parts of Indonesia. Not only is this handbook informed by years of fieldwork, but it has also gone through consultations with several researchers, academicians, program implementers, and development partners, all working on issues revolving child protection and wellbeing. We hope this handbook will be relevant to people working in or with those capacities.
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Youth participatory action research (YPAR) provides a model for youth leadership in research aimed at tangible improvements to their lives. We employed YPAR with queer and trans young adults in a qualitative study about trans high school youth. In this paper, we highlight the importance of relationships, dialog and reflexivity to ensuring ongoing critical reflection on the ethical nature of what often appear as methodological and operational issues. Our research underscores the tensions, contradictions, and limitations of sharing power that emerge in collaborations across age, race, educational attainment, and lived experience.
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Ce document est la traduction de l’article « Searching for Ethics: Legal requirements and empirical issues for anthropology » (voir Perrin et al. 2018). Il analyse les nouvelles dispositions légales qui impactent les pratiques de recherche qualitative et contribuent à l’institutionnalisation de l’éthique de la recherche en Suisse. Après avoir contextualisé l’émergence de nouvelles formes de régulation de la recherche, il montre comment leurs présupposés épistémologiques affectent l’anthropologie. Il explore ensuite les enjeux liés à l’articulation entre éthique procédurale et éthique processuelle. Enfin, il examine les différentes postures qui pourraient être adoptées par les anthropologues et en sociales qualitatives.
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Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is a methodology to engage youth in the research process and is focused on emancipation and empowerment. Although benefits have been outlined, ethical issues have also arisen. This article provides a narrative review of peer-reviewed literature regarding these ethical issues. After applying standardized search criteria and inclusion/exclusion criteria, 26 articles remained. Examination of the literature revealed seven categories of ethical issues: level of participation, power, consent, risk/benefit ratio, confidentiality and anonymity, remuneration and empowerment. To mitigate these issues, recommendations are provided, including: being explicit about, and inclusive of, youths’ participation; critically reflect upon the researcher as ‘expert’; consent as an ongoing process and based on capacity rather than biological age; balancing the need to protect youth with the benefits of participation; challenge blanket anonymity policies to maximize participation and empowerment; remuneration beyond monetary compensation; and incorporate concepts of empowerment into research design and process.
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Este artículo recoge y analiza investigaciones relacionadas con prácticas de crianza en Latinoamérica a partir de un estado del arte en el periodo 2002-2019. Se identificaron las principales tendencias actuales y las perspectivas que los estudios sugieren. El método empleado fue de revisión integrativa, cuya finalidad es obtener nuevas conclusiones a partir de resultados de investigaciones ya realizadas. La metodología fue cualitativa desde una perspectiva teórica hermenéutica a partir de estudios aplicados y teóricos que expresan modos de interrelación y tipos de prácticas parentales. Se concluye que los investigadores tienden al uso de combinaciones teóricas para comprender las prácticas de crianza, lo que da cuenta de la importancia de la educación que ofrece la familia o entorno cercano en los primeros años de vida. Se presenta un fenómeno característico: el grado de corresponsabilidad de actores que intervienen en el desarrollo de niños y jóvenes está mediado por un factor cultural.
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This chapter outlines the goals of the book and how Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) can impact research findings while also addressing some of the ethical complexities that emerge in more traditional research. We present incarceration from a national perspective and the specific context and challenges that exist in the state of Florida and the Tampa Bay region. We provide an overview of CBPR literature and focus on existing scholarship with incarcerated individuals. We conclude with the purpose and goals of our research and the ethical concerns that are raised given this context and unique population.
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Reflecting upon the notion of 'marked bodies' (Barad, 2007) as a metaphor for violence, the author draws upon their experience on a long-term, arts-based research/creation project with women who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and critically considers the ways in which 'emotion' can be conceptualized as both a territory and an agential force. Lived experience with borderline personality disorder often involves long and repeated periods of suicidal ideation and self- harm, yet these experiences are often misunderstood and framed in ways that invalidate emotional distress. The author outlines the ways in which vulnerability as method and radical acceptance of emotional contagion (Brennan, 2004) can foster 'differential responsiveness' (Barad, 2007; 2014) to marks on bodies and allow for the emergence of 'borderline narratives' to emerge and intervene within expert knowledge systems.
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Some social scientists have criticised the workings of research-ethics committees because their biomedical model is ill-suited to social-science research in both practical and philosophical terms. In this paper we review these criticisms and propose an alternative approach to ethical review that is based on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
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Recent work in human geography has articulated the principles of an emerging ‘participatory ethics’. Yet despite sustained critical examination of the participatory conditions under which geographical knowledge is produced, far less attention has addressed how a participatory ethics might unsettle the conventional ways such knowledge continues to be received, circulated, exchanged and mediated. As such, the uptake of visual methods in participatory research praxis has drawn a range of criticism for assuming visual outputs ‘tell their own stories’ and that publics might straightforwardly engage with them. In response, this paper develops an argument for adopting an ethical stance that takes a more situated, processual account of the ways participants themselves might convene their own forms of public engagement, and manage their own conditions of becoming visible through the research process. To do so the concept of an ethics of recognition is developed, drawing attention to the inter- and intra-subjective relations that shape the public research encounter, and signalling ways that participants might navigate such conditions in pursuit of their intuitive desire to give an account of themselves to others. This ethical stance is then used to rethink questions of visibility and publicness through the conditions of reception, mediation and exchange that took place during the efforts of a London-based participatory research project to ‘go public’. Drawing in particular on the experiences of one of the project participants, we suggest how a processual and contingent understanding of public engagement informed by such an ethics of recognition might be anticipated, approached and enacted.
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Durante los últimos años Colombia ha profundizado en la conceptualización y análisis de la pobreza desde un enfoque multidimensional, por lo que las mediciones actuales capturan la privación en diferentes dimensiones respecto a las necesidades de los adultos. Sin embargo, para lograr un diseño e implementación de políticas públicas efectivas dirigidas a niños, niñas y adolescentes (NNA), es necesario observar las privaciones de acuerdo a las necesidades particulares de esta población. El objetivo de esta investigación fue el diseño de una medición de pobreza multidimensional infantil basado en las condiciones de vida de los NNA colombianos. El diseño del Índice de Pobreza Multidimensional en Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes (IPM-N), se basó en la metodología Alkire y Foster (2007, 2011), incluyó métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos e involucró la participación directa de NNA en Bogotá, Chocó, Amazonas, y Córdoba, y de expertos en política social. Como resultado, el IPM-N reconoció y priorizó algunas de las dimensiones propuestas por el DNP y CEPAL y UNICEF, e identificó otras que responden a privaciones que afectan negativamente el desarrollo de capacidades presentes y futuras de esta población.
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Drawing from geo-ethnographic data collected during a participatory action research (PAR) project funded by the National Science Foundation and subsequent research conducted in Colombia with marginalized youth populations, this article explores the sociospatial exclusion and (im)mobility of the oppressed, subjugated, and persecuted through the social cartographies, geo-narratives, and auto-photographic images of transgender sex workers that were displaced by paramilitary-led gender-based violence and forced to leave their birth cities and rural communities in Colombia at an early age. As is the case for thousands of victims of the armed conflict in Colombia, displaced transgender populations seek refuge and opportunity in the streets of Bogotá, Colombia. The (im)mobilities of transgender sex workers are explored in two stages—the forced, violent mobilities of their displacement, followed by their experiences of discrimination, sociospatial exclusion, and persecution through hate crimes and social cleansing killings on arrival in Bogotá. This article discusses how research actors constructed their own spaces of cohesion and resistance to the multifaceted discrimination and marginalization from mainstream urban society through PAR. The PAR project presented in this article continues as part of the broader struggle of transgender sex workers to challenge the exclusionary discourses and praxis that limit their mobilities and autonomy in the city. This article concludes with examples of how research actors use the action-driven elements of PAR to negotiate, analyze, and resist the relationships of power and violence embedded within their urban environment and begin to re-present and change the reality of their immobility within the city.
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De la estigmatización de los consumidores de bazuco y pegante hacia la inclusión de sus voces en la política El consumo de bazuco y pegante en Colombia es un tema de discusión médica, política y social que está presente en nuestra sociedad por sus peligrosos efectos y por la inexperiencia en el abordaje de este tipo de problemas sociales. Las diferentes causas del inicio del consumo, así como los efectos de los diferentes programas de rehabilitación, son campos que no han sido lo suficientemente investigados. La falta de conocimiento sobre estos procesos ha llevado a un continuo fracaso en el intento de prevención y rehabilitación. La reducción de las personas a la categoría de 'drogadicto' , 'desechable' , 'bazuquero' o 'pegantero' hace que el proceso de rehabilitación fracase por la discriminación y violencia constantes. Conocer las historias y procesos individuales sobre el consumo de estas dos sustancias y hacer partícipes a los directamente involucrados en las decisiones que se toman sobre sus vidas resulta clave para formular políticas públicas. Link to policy brief: https://egob.uniandes.edu.co/index.php/es/me-publicaciones/notas-de-politica/15-notas-de-politica/78-de-la-estigmatizacion-de-los-consumidores-de-bazuco-y-pegante-hacia-la-inclusion-de-sus-voces-en-la-politica-public?hitcount=0
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In 1993, Julia Cream published an article deconstructing the politics surrounding the ‘cluster’ of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) diagnoses in Cleveland, UK. In 2014, in a viewpoint article in this journal, Dowler, Cuomo, and Laliberte called for a change in higher education governance, after the widely publicised Penn State CSA scandal. Within this 20-year period, these were two of only a handful of articles to be published in geography, focusing on CSA. Upwards of one in eight people in the UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand are survivors of CSA. Other social science disciplines have established the impact CSA can have on mental health, relationships and life choices, all of which are lived out in space and place. CSA survivors are also over-represented amongst geographically marginalised groups. We argue that human geography's silence on CSA represents a significant oversight not only in terms of understandings people's relations to, use of and perceptions of space and place but also in terms of contributing to the silencing of survivors. We call for a recognition that this absent presence is associated with individual and social processes of dissociation and denial.
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In the USA, the incidence of HIV is rapidly increasing among young people. To increase the effectiveness of HIV prevention and care, efforts for adolescents should consist of interdisciplinary partnerships that address the complexity of the population and co-occurring physical and mental health issues. Partnerships among academic researchers; representatives from educational and testing organizations, health departments, clinics, and other community-based organizations (including youth-serving organizations); and adolescents themselves are essential. These partnerships can produce innovative strategies that address adolescent-specific issues related to HIV prevention, diagnosis, and care, as well as cultural norms and gender-role expectations particular to adolescents, their developmental stage, and their local communities. Such partnerships can also increase understanding during exploratory and formative evaluation phases, inform the development of interventions and programs that are most relevant to adolescents, and increase the likelihood that these interventions and programs will be implemented, found to be effective, and sustained (if warranted) by communities. Some academic researchers, clinicians, and other providers partner directly with adolescents, while others partner with youth-serving organizations to engage and work with adolescents.
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Memories of violence for “street girls” (referred to as VMC girls in this article) are stored in multiple places across geographic scales. From particular private places to blood-stained street corners, VMC girls' movements throughout the city are haunted by place-memories of violence. Based on findings from youth-driven participatory action research (YPAR) with VMC girls in Bogotá, Colombia, this article re-presents violence through their eyes by drawing from participatory writing workshops, place-perception interviews, street-corner cartography, and textual reflections in fieldnotes on violence in the socio-spatial context of VMC girls. The inclusion of VMC girls' voices through qualitative data excerpts takes the reader on a journey through these young people's minds, voices and visions of Bogotá. Through a description of how VMC girls exercised their “right to the city” during the project, the article discusses strategies adapted by the YPAR team to overcome experiences of violence and to re-envision the urban spaces in which violence occurred. These strategies include artistic expression and different acts of “speaking out” in which VMC girls alter spaces in order to erase painful place-memories of violence and construct an alternative geo-narrative of the city. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.23.1.0064
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This study presents the design and development of a multidimensional child poverty index in Colombia that can be used for assessment and policy design. Using a mixed-method design that combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, we developed a multidimensional measure of child poverty. We conducted 80 focus groups with children and adolescents in four regions of Colombia, as well as 27 interviews with experts and policy makers in order to incorporate the voices and perceptions of children, youth and experts in the index design process. Based on these results as well as empirical evidence on deprivations that are determinant for human development, we constructed a Multidimensional Child and Adolescent Poverty Index (MCAP). We used nationally representative household survey data to estimate the MCAP for 2008, 2010 and 2011 in order to measure changes over time. We also decomposed the MCAP in order to identify critical dimensions for different age groups and estimated the MCAP for different departments and regions in Colombia. We found that overall, 34% of children and adolescents in Colombia are poor. This represents a 10 percentage-point reduction in comparison with 2008, which is important progress. We also found significant heterogeneity by regions: while in Bogotá MCAP is less than 20%, in Chocó and Guajira, more than half of children and adolescents are poor. As per the critical dimensions, we found that for all age groups lack of access to potable water, overcrowding and lack of access to parks or green areas contribute the most to child poverty. In addition, for children under five and adolescents, lack of access to education is a critical area and for children and adolescents, lack of access to recreational or time use services has an important contribution to poverty. We show how the MCAP can be used as a policy design tool for child poverty reduction that is sensitive to the needs of children from different age groups and regions through the design of benefit packages. Both the mixed-method research design and study findings are expected to have a significant impact across sectors including both academic and international and national policy circles.
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Research in […] a time of uncertainty, and in an era when knowledge as power is reinscribed through its value as a commodity in the global market place, presents tricky ground for researchers. (Smith, 2007, 102)
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Some months ago, in preparation for compil-ing the next three geography and ethicsreports, I registered with one of the commonelectronic database services to receive thetitles of journal articles focused on ethics.There are two things that I found noteworthyabout this exercise. The first is the sheer vol-ume of contemporary work on ethics – by myrather unscientific reckoning, something ofthe order of 1500 articles dealing with ethicsare published in academic journals each year.The second is the presumed audience formuch of this work. It seems that the vastmajority of recent ethical writings are aimednot at the readers of social science journalslike this one, but rather at the mundane worldof institutions, organizations and public policy.In recent months, articles have addressed theethical dimensions of a wide range of socialand organizational practices, from auditing tozoo keeping. Ethics are being discussed bybankruptcy lawyers, money managers, judgesand dentists, and applied to our sportingevents, our militaries, and even our spaceagencies. Ethical conversations, it seems, aretaking place at a multitude of sites across thesocial domain.This state of affairs should probably beapplauded. But it does not necessarily ensurethat our social institutions function ethicallyor responsibly, or even that we can easilydetermine what that might mean. At issuehere is a common challenge of ethical think-ing: how do we bring normative demands tobear upon the social world of order, rules, andpublic policy? One well-known theorist whograppled with this challenge is EmmanuelLevinas, who often admitted that his concep-tion of ethics, based as it was on a one-to-onerelation with the singular Other, was ratherdifficult to translate into a social world ofcitizen-subjects:
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The Institutional Review Board (IRB) was originally responsible for just the biomedical scientific research on human subjects. However, although the IRB process may have been at least marginally well suited to serve its original mission, that process has become buried in an avalanche of new and unrelated socially constructed mandates. The IRB process today consumes an inordinate amount of time, energy and resources in attempting to prevent a growing list of imagined harms, minor harms or highly unlikely harms. A consequence of this is that institutions and researches must comply with highly unlikely harms, which waste time, energy and resources. Another complication is that the there is no external monitoring of IRB decisions and no appeals process. As institutionalized monopolies, these committees are shielded from external scrutiny, immune from assessment and therefore systematically unaccountable for their decisions. If the IRB disapproves a scientist's research or demands substantial protocol revisions, he is simply out of luck. For powerless, rationally self-interested social-science researchers, the best survival strategy will always be IRB avoidance, steering clear of all research that might be remotely associated with even the most ephemeral harms and avoiding politically charged or potentially offensive research topics. Such avoidance will result in the decline in the social science students' interest in social science, but also a bleak future for social science in the US.
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This paper combines ethnographic research with discourse analysis to discuss how the protests of women sex workers in downtown Ciudad Juárez also represent protests against a larger urban economy that valorizes the disappearance of women from urban space. In Ciudad Juárez today, these disappearances are taking place as women and girls vanish from the publicity regarding progress in the maquiladora industry. The disappearances occur as more women and girls are kidnapped and murdered, and the disappearances occur as the police remove sex workers from the downtowns of border cities long famous for prostitution. While these different types of disappearances are not equivalent—to be denied access to public space is not the same as to be kidnapped and murdered—they are knit together through a discourse deployed by the city's political and corporate elites that equates the removal of women from public space with urban development and industrial progress. By combining ethnographic research with discourse analysis, and Marxist with feminist critique, I am following the lead of several geographers who regard discourses as “sociospatial circuits” that are productive of urban, economic, and cultural landscapes. This approach allows for an analysis of how the women sex workers' efforts to reappear in public space represents a protest, with potential for creating political alliances with other activists, against those invested in generating value from the disappearance of women across the Ciudad Juarez industrial and urban landscape.
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In this paper I seek to describe, explain, and evaluate three decades of Left geographical change. Now that 'critical geography' -- rather than 'radical geography' -- has become the privileged descriptor for Left geographical inquiry, it is argued that this temporal switch of labels is of more than merely semantic significance. Specifically, it is suggested that the supercession of the radical geography' label is symptomatic of a substantive shift in the nature and purposes of Left geographical inquiry. This shift has entailed the professionalisation' and academicisation' of Left geography. Both developments have occurred in the context of a thirty-year transition from a 'modern' to an 'after-modern' higher education system. Taking the Anglo-American case, it is argued that the current vitality of the geographical (read critical') Left in the academy correlates with its detachment from 'real world' political constituencies and also a blindness to the academic changes underpinning this inverse correlation. Rather than worrying over their apparent failure to connect with constituencies 'out there', it is argued that geographical Leftists need to recapture something of the radical geography spirit of action and engagement in order to contest changes occurring 'in here': that is, changes in the political and moral economy of the higher system that enables and constrains our academic labours. A brief manifesto for a 'domesticated critical geography' is offered by way of a conclusion.
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This paper provides a brief history of regulatory research ethics, as embodied in Institutional Review Boards in the United States. The purpose is to foster common disciplinary understanding of the origin and purpose of IRBs, and to identify the core conflict between the philosophies of participatory action research and regulatory ethics. That conflict centers on the contradictory language and associated understandings of research "subjects" and "participants". I suggest a need for more disciplinary engagements around this conflict, to foster more open ethical debates and competencies among geographers. © Deborah G. Martin, 2007; journal compilation
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Conventional informed consent guidelines as exemplified by Canada's research ethics policy statement and applied by Institutional Research Boards (IRBs) presuppose an individuated liberal humanist research subject that is incommensurate with the subjectivities of many actual research participants as they experience them, and as the theoretical perspectives used in much qualitative research conceptualise them. I use the example of my ethnographic research in northern Pakistan to demonstrate that abiding by IRB guidelines for informed consent would have the effect of disciplining and normalising both my research participants and my research. Based on my own research experiences I suggest four guiding practices for informed consent in community centred research: that it be collective, progressive, oral, and negotiated. The paper ends by stressing the importance of examining research ethics policies and procedures as a way to reflect critically on the disciplining and normalising institutional context within which our research practices and outcomes are shaped. © David Butz, 2008; collection
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Participatory Action Research (PAR) approaches and methods have seen an explosion of recent interest in the social and environmental sciences. PAR involves collaborative research, education and action which is oriented towards social change, representing a major epistemological challenge to mainstream research traditions. It has recently been the subject of heated critique and debate and rapid theoretical and methodological development. This book captures these developments, exploring the justification, theorisation, practice and implications of PAR. It offers a critical introduction to understanding and working with PAR in different social, spatial and institutional contexts. The authors engage with PAR's radical potential, while maintaining a critical awareness of its challenges and dangers. The book is divided into three parts. The first part explores the intellectual, ethical and pragmatic contexts of PAR; the development and diversity of approaches to PAR; recent poststructuralist perspectives on PAR as a form of power; the ethic of participation; and issues of safety and well-being. Part two is a critical exploration of the politics, places and practices of PAR. Contributors draw on diverse research experiences with differently situated groups and issues including environmentally sustainable practices, family livelihoods, sexual health, gendered experiences of employment, and specific communities such as people with disabilities, migrant groups, and young people. The principles, dilemmas and strategies associated with participatory approaches and methods including diagramming, cartographies, art, theatre, photovoice, video and geographical information systems are also discussed. Part three reflects on how effective PAR is, including the analysis of its products and processes, participatory learning, representation and dissemination, institutional benefits and challenges, and working between research, action, activism and change.
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"At last world.com meets ethnography.eudora. This book shows how ethnography can have a global reach and a global relevance, its humanistic and direct methods actually made more not less relevant by recent developments in global culture and economy. Globalisation is not a singular, unilinear process, fatalistically unfolding towards inevitable ends: it entails gaps, contradictions, counter-tendencies, and marked unevenness. And just as capital flows more freely around the globe, so do human ideas and imaginings, glimpses of other possible futures. These elements all interact in really existing sites, situations and localities, not in outer space or near-earth orbit. Unprefigurably, they are taken up into all kinds of local meanings-makings by active humans struggling and creating with conditions on the ground, so producing new kinds of meanings and identities, themselves up for export on the world market. This book, conceptually rich, empirically concrete, shows how global neo-liberalism spawns a grounded globalisation, ethnographically observable, out of which is emerging the mosaic of a new kind of global civil society. As this book so richly shows, tracing the lineaments of these possibilities and changes is the special province of ethnography."--Paul Willis, author of Learning to Labor and editor of the journal Ethnography "The authors of Global Ethnography bring globalization 'down to earth' and show us how it impacts the everyday lives of Kerala nurses, U.S. homeless recyclers, Irish software programmers, Hungarian welfare recipients, Brazilian feminists, and a host of other protagonists in a global postmodern world. This is superb ethnography -- refreshing and vivid descriptions grounded in historical and social contexts with important theoretical implications."--Louise Lamphere, President of the American Anthropological Association "The global inhabits and constitutes specific structuration of the political, economic, cultural, and subjective. How to study this is a challenge. Global Ethnography makes an enormous contribution to this effort."--Saskia Sassen, author of Globalization and Its Discontents "This fascinating volume will quickly find its place in fieldwork courses, but it should also be read by transnationalists and students of the political economy, economic sociologists, methodologists of all stripes--and doubting macrosociologists."--Herbert J. Gans, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University "Not only matches the originality and quality of Ethnography Unbound, but raises the ante by literally expanding the methodological and analytical repertory of ethnographic sociology to address the theoretical and logistical challenges of a globalized discipline and social world."--Judith Stacey, author of In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age "In the best traditions of radical Berkeley scholarship, Burawoy's collective recaptures the ground(s) of an engaged sociology embedded in the culturalpolitics of the global without losing the ethnographer's magic--the local touch."--Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death without Weeping
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This paper addresses the dilemma of how easy it is to talk and write about human geographies of ethics and justice compared to the difficulties of living out those geographies in our everyday life practices. If radical ideas and radical practices are to go hand in hand, we need to address the apparent inability to retain a critical political edge in human geography. The paper comments on new readings of moral and ethical geographies, noting Marc Augé's distinction between a sense of the other and a sense for the other, and arguing that any goal in human geography for developing an emotional, connected and committed sense for the other may necessitate a prompting of the moral imagination which includes political/ethical/spiritual constellations of issues such as charity, agape and evil. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and Melissa Orlie, the paper emphasizes imaginations of power that recognize ‘evil’, the crisis of the citizen-subject, and the recovery of political enthusiasms for ‘invisible powers’. It envisions a human geography in which living ethically and acting politically can be essentially intertwined with a sense for the other in a sensitive, committed and active approach to the subject. This entails both a continuing engagement in collective political action against ordered evil, and taking responsibility for what we have been made to be and for who we are becoming.
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The question of how far we should care for others, or the spatial scope of beneficence, raises important issues at the interface of geography and moral philosophy. After introducing what is at stake, this article reviews partiality conventions manifest in favouring nearest and dearest people. The possibility of extending the scope of care, in the spirit of impartiality, raises questions concerning spatial relationships, human similarity and care as a moral value. Attention then turns to indications of a contemporary resurgence of partiality. Possible reconciliations of impartiality and an ethic of care are outlined, leading to the conclusion that care should be related to an egalitarian theory of justice.
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Questions of care appear to be catching the imagination of researchers across several areas of human geography at present (see Parr 2003).We can note, for instance, the growing body of work that explores the significance of care in particular settings. Milligan (2000) has written of the home-space in this regard, while Twigg's (2000) work on bathing and intimate care is similarly attentive to domestic spatiality. The complex material and psycho-social dimensions of care in the home emerge clearly in these accounts; we see that despite benevolent intentions, the quality and consistency of such care is variable and its delivery often emotionally demanding (see Allan and Crow 1989). Other research has focused on mental health care environments (Kearns and Joseph 2000; Parr 2000; Philo 1997; Pinfold 2000), hospices (Brown 2003; Brown and Colton 2001), hospitals (Allen 2001) and alternative medicine centres (Wiles and Rosenberg 2001; Williams 2000). Within these studies we see how relations and practices of care—things such as listening, feeding, changing clothes and administering medication—are implicated in the production of particular social spaces. The care-taking tasks which bring people together in these settings involve both physical and emotional labour, and often depend disproportionately upon the commitment of women (Daly and Lewis 1998; Finch and Groves 1983; Ungerson 1990).
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Across the decades geographers have been concerned with questions of our ethical responsibilities to care. It would seem that care is nothing new in geography. I argue however, that contemporary societal shifts are extending market relations into caring realms of our lives and that we are witnessing reductions in public provision of social supports. These twin trends have made care a more pressing concern and have simultaneously marginalized care from view. Geographers are well positioned to draw attention to these trends and I urge us to think about our responsibility to care about these issues, and the geographies that they make. I ask us all to think about our responsibilities as geographers to pose questions in the face of (i) market extensions, (ii) currently pervasive discourses of personal responsibility (for poverty, inner city decline, unemployment, etc.), and (iii) the withdrawal of public support from many crucial arenas. Care ethics focuses our attention on the social and how it is constructed through unequal power relationships, but it also moves us beyond critique and toward the construction of new forms of relationships, institutions, and action that enhance mutuality and well-being. I consider how our research, teaching, and professional practices might shift in conversation with care ethics. Care ethics suggests that we build spatially extensive connections of interdependence and mutuality, that we attend to the ways in which historical and institutional relationships produce the need for care (extension of market relations; famine, unnatural disasters, environmental and cultural destruction), and that we take up social responsibility in our professional practices.
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While most collaborative research approaches for working with children and young people draw upon visual methodologies, which are engaging and accessible to all ages and transcend barriers of language and literacy, the methods I discuss in this paper privilege written and verbal expression. These techniques may be especially useful for those researchers who work with teenagers, however the principles of the PAR approach are relevant to all doing research with children and young people. journal article
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This paper considers grassroots globalization networks, which comprise a diversity of social movements working in association to engage in multi-scalar political action. Drawing upon David Harvey's notion of militant particularism (regarding the problems of effecting politics between different geographical scales), and recent research on networks and their relationship to places, the paper analyses People's Global Action, an international network of social movements opposing neoliberal globalization. From an analysis of the process geographies of People's Global Action, the paper proposes the notion of convergence space as a conceptual tool by which to understand and critique grassroots globalization networks. The paper argues that contested social relations emerge in such convergence spaces and considers the implications of these for theorizing such networks, and for political action.
Beyond the journal article: Representations, audience, and the presentation of participatory research
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The islanding of children: Reshaping the mythical landscapes of childhood
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Generation under fire: Children and violence in Colombia
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Code of federal regulations: Title 45-Public welfare, Part 46 protection of human subjects
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