Inside‐Out: Representational Ethics and Diverse Communities

• Published in: American journal of community psychology Vol. 60; no. 3-4; pp. 414 - 423
• Main Authors: Haarlammert, Miryam, Birman, Dina, Oberoi, Ashmeet, Moore, Wendy Jordana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Science Ltd 01.12.2017
• Subjects: Adolescents; Autonomy; Community; Community psychology; Community research; Culture; Deficit model; Ethics; Ethics, Research; Evangelicalism; Gender; Gender Identity; Humans; Insider/outsider dynamics; Intersectionality; Marginality; Medical ethics; Psychological distress; Psychologists; Psychology; Psychology - ethics; Representational ethics; Research ethics; Research Personnel; Research Subjects; Secondary school students; Social Identification; Socialization; Representational ethics; Gender; Intersectionality; Deficit model; Culture; Insider/outsider dynamics
• ISSN: 0091-0562; 1573-2770; 1573-2770
• DOI: 10.1002/ajcp.12188

The purpose of this paper is to write about insights and special considerations for researchers who are, to some degree, “insiders” to the communities they study by expanding on the concept of representational ethics as applied to research in community psychology with diverse and marginalized groups. Representational ethics refers to the ways that researchers, artists, or corporations represent the identities of the people they portray in their communications. As community psychologists we generate and disseminate knowledge about the communities we work with, and in that process, create narratives about the people who participate in our studies. In preparing a report on psychological issues among Evangelical Christian refugees from the former Soviet Union, Dina Birman struggled with her portrayal of this group and her own status of being both an insider and an outsider to this community. When investigating academic aspirations and psychological distress among Muslim high school students, Ashmeet Oberoi was forced to acknowledge the one‐sidedness of the discourse on autonomy and cultural socialization of Muslim adolescents. In her research with Cuban‐educated doctors in Miami, Florida, Wendy Moore encountered similar issues as she considered how to represent gender dynamics among her participants. Highlights Representational ethics should be added to any ethical framework for community psychology. Such ethics refers to how researchers represent identities of people they study in communications. The term partial insider was used to describe the fluidity of our identities. We explore our identities as partial insiders and representational ethics related to it. Implications when research is conducted by those who identify with the communities they study.