Short Abstract

The Ethics Forum creates a dialogical space for discussing ethics with regards to teaching, journal and funder requirements, and institutional review procedures. Through practical input and collective discussion, the lab tests and develops processual research ethics in anthropology.

Long Abstract

The GASCA Working Group on Ethics proposes an Ethics Forum as a recurring, dialogical forum for collectively reflecting on the ethical challenges that move, and sometimes unsettle, anthropological research, teaching, and institutional practice. The lab approaches research ethics not as a one-time act of formal approval, but as an ongoing, situated, and relational process. It creates space to discuss the affective, political, and material conditions under which researchers make difficult decisions in the field and within increasingly regulated academic environments.

The session begins with a short practice-oriented input and discussion on current developments in research ethics: including journal and funder requirements, available guidance and resources, and experiences with locally developed institutional procedures. The main part of the lab will be a moderated discussion on ethical challenges in research, teaching, supervision, or institutional contexts. Proposed questions for discussion are: How can we integrate the DGSKA’s Frankfurt Declaration and ethics guidelines into teaching, supervision and research practice? In which ways may researchers respond to demands for ethics approval that do not adequately reflect processual ethnographic practice in German-speaking academic contexts? And, lastly, how can anthropology departments establish their own accountable procedures?

By bringing together field-based dilemmas, institutional experiences, and collective reflection, the Ethics Forum seeks to both sharpen awareness of ethical complexity and test the practical robustness of existing DGSKA ethics-related guidelines. It aims to foster sustained exchange across different institutions, and addresses anthropologists at all career stages.