The Ethical Minefield in Human Trafficking Research - Real and Imagined

Author: Zhang, Sheldon

Abstract: All research endeavors involving human subjects must operate within some ethical parameters, some of which bear greater consequences than others should there be violations. However, unlike biomedical research or any experimental studies that employ physical intrusion, manipulation, or deliberate disguise, most social sciences, particularly ethnographical studies, involve nothing more than conversing and observing. Through my personal experience in research on human trafficking, I am questioning the unproductive and obstructionist approach in current institutional efforts ubiquitous in American academia to police and censor such mundane and ordinary research activities. I suggest that a fundamental lack of confidence in human agency and the researcher’s personal integrity has given rise to unfettered concerns over possible violations of ethics in field research. As a result, an enormous amount of collective energy is being wasted by institutions and moral entrepreneurs alike to review study plans and by researchers who prepare and respond to such an unnecessary scrutiny. While ethical concerns over research conduct in social science may sound reasonable and even legitimate, none have received any empirical support. In other words, social science has thus far proven to be 100 % “clinically” safe to human beings. With such an impeccable “safety” record currently and historically, does anyone ever wonder, why all this fuss?

Keywords: research ethics, human trafficking, institutional review boards, human subject protection, moral entrepreneur