This workshop aims to discuss, outline, and debate young researchers' quests for Ethics and Reflexivity in their journey to produce knowledge. Knowledge production, ethics, and reflexivity
are often framed as goals to inspire research at all stages, starting with the research design.
Scientific skills and ethical qualities acquired in the field of social sciences and humanities research need a particular ethical reflection to acquire relevance: methodological rigor, evaluation, and selection of sources, context analysis, identification and choice of sample, selection of the field, disposition to non-judgmental observation, critical and non-prejudicial interpretation of data, responsibility in communicating results to stakeholders or public dissemination of the research, acquire in the social sciences and humanities a particular ethical relevance. These aspects, in addition to qualifying the methodology and its scientific value, are a constitutive part of the very integrity of research, whose ethical principles and rules of conduct direct the activity of all researchers.
A purported purpose is to highlight the possible implicit -often underestimated- risks arising from investigations involving human subjects and the main critical issues related to the possible invasiveness of the private sphere -that such studies entail- to contain and prevent discriminatory effects that may result. Hence, ethical criteria are indicated to facilitate the researchers in making choices and putting in place measures to concretely protect the dignity, autonomy, safety, confidentiality, and well-being of research participants and interlocutors.
As suggested by the title Knowledge Production, Ethics, and Reflexivity in South Asia, the workshop investigates methodological aspects applied in social sciences research, which include (but are not limited to) knowledge production, ethical concerns, fieldwork, and the researcher's reflexive approach to deal with the fieldwork, writing, and the crises that emerge from fieldwork and writing.
