African Studies without Ethics Dumping: An Integrative Study of Research Ethics Governance in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa

Abstract

Abstract

One of the most recent and significant discussions in AS is how to reconfigure the field in ways that will systematically advance innovative research and transformative knowledge production. In the new turn of AS driven by transdisciplinary, transnational, and collaborative flavour, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the roles of ethical review committees in the execution of non-exploitative research in AS. Though Research Ethics (RE) has a long history in Western culture as a corrective mechanism to the violently Nazi unethical experimental saga on the ways medical doctors conducted research on their patients, today, RE covers research not only in the medical sciences but also in the humanities in so far as human agents are involved. Empirically oriented research in AS today requires going through the ethical review process guided by the Western infrastructure of ethics. While the classical model of doing AS on Africans/African soil and funded in the global ‘North’ has often created the phenomenon of ‘ethics dumping’, far too little attention has been paid to how ethics dumping can be avoided in the evolving model of reconfiguring AS through equal partnerships and research collaborations. Though ethics dumping is not an end in itself as it is a process mediated by contextual factors and characterised by power relationships, it is important to investigate its nuances, its depth, and the structures that can mitigate its prevalence in the contemporary AS research space.
Some studies have documented the research ethics governance structures in some African states (Sambiéni (2018), Chilisa (2019), Chatfield et al. (2020), Schoeman (2019), Cook, Chatfield, and Schroeder (2019), Yakubu (2017), Chu, et al. (2014), Chantler et al (2013), Goduka (1990)). Insofar as these studies are instructive, there has been no discussion on the multiple-space African-inspired theoretical exploration of research ethics protocol. While African states, including Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, are no exceptions to the universal ideals of having research ethics committees, the histories, circumstances of emergence, configuration and structures, powers, and limitations of such committees in the three countries are diverse with some common interesting grounds, worthy of investigation. Given the history of unethical and exploitative research in Africa, it is urgent and important to take seriously the question of research moralities in AS without ethical imperialism (Fayemi & Macaulay-Adeyelure, 2016). Pertinent research questions to this study include: How can AS be done without ethics dumping? How can AS be reconfigured through research ethics that is decolonized? What are the efforts in having indigenous research ethics governance in some African states and how can such documents be harmonized to reflect African cultural realities?
Currently, there is no study profiling the variations, the extent, the contents and overlaps of the mechanism for research ethics capacity-building among the West African, East African, and Southern African regions. Also, there are no studies interrogating in close context, whether the establishment of research ethics in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa is an (un)intended imperialistic project. Therefore, it is important to stress the understanding of the ambience, contents, and mechanisms of capacity-building in research ethics in each of these countries as critical to shaping future directions in AS. In reconfiguring AS, it is important to investigate whether Western research ethics interact or contradict national and regional ethical frameworks in Africa. This study aims to determine and examine the existing research ethics governance structure and the principles underpinning its operations in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. It seeks to unpack the extent of ethics dumping pre-eminence in research ethics committees' operations while also evaluating the nature and impacts of research ethics capacity-building programmes on the epistemic integrity of research and knowledge production in AS. By so doing, the study seeks to develop an African-multisite-inspired research ethics protocol for prescriptive use inequitable collaborative and transnational research in AS. Considering the growing wave of decolonizing the disciplines and methodologies in AS, the proposed project aims at reconfiguring AS through a decolonised lens of research ethics. In decolonizing research ethics from a ‘one-size-fits all’ model, this project draws on the ACC core concepts of multiplicity, reflexivity, positionality, and relationality. The project will explore multiple local contexts of research ethics review in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa to harmonize overlapping ideals and research ethics standards. The study plans to collaborate with all the ACCs to evolve research ethics protocols for AS grounded on indigenous epistemologies and values.