Ethical Principles, Social Harm and the Economic Relations of Research: Negotiating Ethics Committee Requirements and Community Expectations in Ethnographic Research in Rural Malawi

Abstract

Conventional research ethics focus on avoidance of harm to individual participants through measures to ensure informed consent. In long-term ethnographic research projects involving multiple actors, however, a wider concept of harm is needed. We apply the criminological concept of social harm, which focuses on harm produced through and affecting wider social relations, to a research project that we undertook in Malawi. Through this, we show how structural economic inequalities shape the consequences of research for the differently positioned parties involved. Specifically, we focus on dilemmas around transferring resources within three social fields: our relations with a Malawian ethics committee; our interventions in a rural community; and our efforts to engage the policy community. Each of these involved multiple and differently placed individuals within broader, multi-scalar structural relations and reveals the inadequacies of conventional codes of ethics.

Chicken or Egg? A Bi-directional Analysis of Social Protection and Social Cohesion in Burundi and Haiti

“…These complaints were not openly expressed but beneficiaries have the vague feeling that members of the community begrudge them of the fact that they receive the transfers (ibid). Similarly in Lesotho and Malawi, lack of comprehension of targeting criteria and targeting choices seemingly arbitrary or linked to favouritism led to programme beneficiaries being resented by other community members (Ansell et al, 2019). In relation to Mexico's former Oportunidades, civil society organisations reported that the intervention could not address issues of social cohesion because it created divisions within the community through targeting some members and not others (Holmes and Slater 2007).…”

Reshaping state–citizen relationships through donor‐designed targeting systems in Lesotho and Malawi

“…The SCTP started as a pilot in 2006 with the aim of alleviating 'poverty, hunger, and starvation in the targeted households, as well as improving health, nutrition, and education conditions of the children living in those households' (Angeles et al, 2016) and was strongly influenced by Zambia's SCT which involved the same key stakeholders and consultants (Pruce & Hickey, 2020). The aim was to reach households that were both ultra-poor and labour constrained (such as elderly caring for children), approximately 10% of the population (Schubert, 2009)-though attempting to define households in the context of Malawi's (and Lesotho's) SCTs is problematic (Ansell et al, 2019). Successive waves of donor-funded expansion have led to nation-wide coverage in 2018 (Hemsteede, 2020).…”

“…1 Targeting is crucial to understanding how cash transfers can shape state-citizens relations (Alik-Lagrange et al, 2021). The way in which targeting takes place can enhance or reduce people's trust in government institutions, but it is extremely complex to 'get right', especially in contexts where 'everybody is poor' or where people do not understand how decisions are made (Ansell et al, 2019;Ellis, 2012).…”

“…After this, officials would create a beneficiary list which should then be verified by the community. However, this selection method is far from perfect and in‐/exclusion errors take place, along other ‘undesirable’ practices such as younger people ‘inheriting’ the right to receive the cash transfer when the original beneficiary passes away (Ansell et al, 2019). Whereas the latter suggests a contractual relationship whereby beneficiaries feel ‘entitled’ to the SCTP, this must be understood in a context of widespread poverty whereby people will use any opportunity available to them without necessarily developing a strong (let alone favourable) relationship with the state.…”