Ethical questions around partnering with and researching in communities often take many elements for granted - that communities are homogenous, vulnerable, lack real agency and are open to being mined for research data. In this special episode we hear from both Dr Anita Franklin and Dr Beth Fox on the challenges, paradoxes and lessons to be learned from decades of working with communities in institutionally funded interdisciplinary research projects. They share insights on how ethical questions should go beyond procedure and constitute the core of all socially just research.

Dr. Anita Franklin who is a writer, educator, radio presenter and playwright with over 30 years of experience at a range of UK Universities (including Leeds and Sheffield) in Sociology, Women’s Studies, Black Studies and Community Development. She uses a variety of methods including creative and narrative approaches to community practice.

Dr Beth Fox, co-leads with this episode’s host AC Davidson, on the interdisciplinary research project Mining for Meaning: a Geoethics of Extractive Industries. Beth is Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Salford. Although she has a background in history and linguistics she is now a geologist and geoscientist with broad interests from reconstructing past climate and environmental change through to ethics and inclusion in geoscience.

Links and references:

https://www.utopiatheatre.co.uk/preserving-legacy/anita-franklin/

https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/persons/bethany-fox/

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/knowledge-frontiers-2021-mining-meaning-geoethics-extractive-ndustries/

Host: AC Davidson

Produced and edited by Hannah Redman, AC Davidson and Nabeela Ahmed

Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)

In archival research, ethical questions of consent, anonymity, power relations and representation are typically absent. In this episode, Dr Sneha Krishnan draws from extensive experience working with colonial-era archives on gender and childhood in India. Sneha sheds light on how the archive does not in fact consist of ‘dead material’ and warrants the rigor, consideration and reflection that any qualitative research entails, particularly as archives are often sites of ongoing imperialist violence but not widely viewed as such.

Dr. Sneha Krishnan is associate professor in Human Geography at the University of Oxford. As a cultural and historical geographer, Sneha is interested in gender and childhood in postcolonial contexts. Her doctoral research used ethnographic and historical research to focus on the spatialities of risk and safety in the lives of young middle-class women in the South Indian city of Chennai. Building on this, her monograph-in-progress examines hostels for women in historical context as sites where imperial logics endure into the postcolonial present.

Links & references:

https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/skrishnan.html

https://www.snehakrishnan.com/

Krishnan, S. (2025). Stories with horns and tails. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 0(0).

https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/saidiya-hartman-on-working-with-archives/

Host: Hannah Redman

Produced and edited by Hannah Redman, AC Davidson and Nabeela Ahmed

Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)

In the pursuit of addressing long-standing colonial practices within and via academia, claiming a decolonial approach to research has become popular, particularly among Western institutions funding research in the global South. However decolonial research is limited in praxis, particularly when it comes to researching commonly othered and Orientalised communities and spaces. Sara Ababneh explains how ethical practice is at the heart of decolonial research and sheds light on the often - paradoxically - obscured ethical implications of reproducing ‘the other’ in research funded and designed in ways that perpetuate colonality.

Dr Sara Ababneh is lecturer of International Relations at the University of Sheffield. Prior to this she lectured at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies. Sara has conducted research on Mandate Palestine, gender and Islamism, Muslim family laws, and labour movements. Her research interests include class, gender, resistance, struggles for liberation, social justice, and economic sovereignty.

Links and references:

https://sheffield.ac.uk/spir/people/academic/sara-ababneh

Ababneh S (2024) Ethics of knowledge extraction and production. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 44(3), 423-427.

Ababneh S (2025) The personal is political: Teaching decolonial connected feminist Middle East politics through self-reflexivity. Daedalus, 154(2), 68-92.

Host: Hannah Redman

Produced and edited by Hannah Redman, AC Davidson and Nabeela Ahmed

Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for longer than we may think but recent years has seen its rapid expansion into every corner of our lives, including in teaching and research practices in multiple - often controversial - ways. Dr. Denis Newman-Griffis shares how they have grappled with the ethical challenges - and opportunities - AI brings in social research.

Dr Denis Newman-Griffis is senior lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield. Their research explores how equitable AI and data science may be used to improve human well-being. They have published extensively across these topics in computer science, health informatics, and social science venues, and is leading funded projects in responsible AI practice and disability informatics.

Links and references:

https://sheffield.ac.uk/cs/people/academic/denis-newman-griffis

Newman-Griffis D, Woods HB, Wu Y, Thelwall M & Holm J (2025) Funding by Algorithm - A handbook for responsible uses of AI and machine learning by research funders. Research on Research Institute.

Newman-Griffis D (2025) AI thinking: a framework for rethinking artificial intelligence in practice. Royal Society Open Science, 12(1).

Host: Hannah Redman

Produced and edited by Hannah Redman, AC Davidson and Nabeela Ahmed

Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)

2025 has seen a visceral ‘return’ of fascist groups to the UK streets at an unprecedented scale, in open support of extremist anti-migrant, racist and white supremacist stances. The increased attention on the far right goes beyond the UK however and needs further understanding and critical research on a global scale. Dr. Meghan Tinsley shares her knowledge and experience of the ethical dilemmas - and very material risks - of critically researching far right and extremist groups in the contemporary age.

Dr. Meghan Tinsley is senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester. Meghan's research brings together themes of nationalism and the memory of empire and recent projects engage with contesting statues, imperial nostalgia, and decolonising the museum. Her work has been published in numerous international journals, including Memory Studies, Current Sociology, Critical Sociology, Postcolonial Studies, and Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Links & References:

https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/meghan.tinsley

https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526173874/

Vaughan, A., Braune, J., Tinsley, M., & Mondon, A. (Eds.). (2024). The ethics of researching the far right: Critical approaches and reflections. Manchester University Press

Host: Hannah Redman

Produced and edited by Hannah Redman, AC Davidson, Nabeela Ahmed

Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)

Research ethics typically focuses on how to avoid harm when working with vulnerable individuals and groups. But what are the ethical implications involved when ‘studying up’ (Laura Nader, 1972)? In this episode, Dr Pere Ayling shares her experience and expertise on the ethical implications of researching elites in Nigeria and challenging norms around “insider” and “outsider” positions in ethnographic research with elites.

Dr Pere Ayling is Senior Lecturer at the University of Suffolk’s School of Social Sciences and Humanities. Her research focuses on how class, gender and race as well as dis/abilities intersect to reproduce ‘privilege’ and ‘inequality’ in education and society overall. It has received international attention including invites to speak at in the UK, Thailand, Spain and the USA among others.

Links & References:

Ayling, P. (2019) Distinction, Exclusivity and Whiteness: Elite Nigerian Parents and the International Education Market. Springer.

Lillie, K, and Ayling, P. (2020) Revisiting the un/ethical: the complex ethics of elite studies research, Qualitative Research, p1–16.

Nader, L. (1972). Up the anthropologist: Perspectives gained from studying up. In D. Hymes (Ed.), Reinventing anthropology (pp. 284–311). Pantheon Books.

Host: Hannah Redman

Produced and edited by: Hannah Redman, AC Davidson, Nabeela Ahmed

Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)

Nabeela Ahmed, AC Davidson and Hannah Redman kick off the series by explaining the backstory of this limited podcast series - why did we want to look at ethical practice beyond the ethics forms and why is it important? As lecturers specialising in different areas of human geography, AC and Nabeela share their experiences of writing and teaching on research ethics; and as a PhD candidate, Hannah offers her take on going through the research ethics process itself when focusing on a knotty topic.

Links:

https://sheffield.ac.uk/geography-planning/people/academic-research/nabeela-ahmed

https://sheffield.ac.uk/geography-planning/people/academic-research/ac-davidson

https://sheffield.ac.uk/geography-planning/phd/candidates/hannah-redman

Produced and edited by Hannah Redman, AC Davidson and Nabeela Ahmed

Music: (freesoundproject - ‘Night sessions (Piano and Bass)’ by elaineaeris)