Reflexivity and Medical Ethics in Social Sciences

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Ethical and methodological issues have been the subject of several volumes. Several reflections, notably on social hierarchies and / or so-called sensitive areas (1-7) discuss the conditions of obtaining the data, the researcher’s status (gender, age, culture, commitment and distancing, etc). While in the West this question of reflexivity is far from new, yet in other contexts the contrast is striking. Indeed, few African expose in their researchers’ books their conditions of investigation. And yet, these questions are far from futile. Indeed, as Christian Ghasarian [2] emphasizes, reflexivity is more necessary than ever to the researcher at the risk of making “conventional” ethnography, or non-reflexive and limited, not to say to the biased, as well so that you are well in the far-off lands than those where the otherness does not jump to the eyes “. To this must be added the question of ethics, which is an important issue in anthropological research and which arises with certain acuity according to the objects of study as well as the methodological choice. Nowadays, the submission of a project to national and international research committees becomes a must for any researcher who deals with a subject related to population health and more specifically in relation to AIDS in the countries of the South in accordance with the charter of ANRS (National Agency for research on AIDS and viral hepatitis). Under these conditions, the beginning of a research, even in the social sciences, depends on the opinion of these committees, which may be to refuse their realization, if they consider that the researcher does not respect an ethics often thought in the Medical field. So, within the framework of my thesis, I had to submit a file to the national research committee of Senegal. However, as others have already pointed out in many respects, the applicability of medical ethics is a problem in social sciences (risks underestimated for participants, limited access to informants, difficulties in signing informed consent, tec.). Starting from these remarks, I return in this analysis on the situations of investigation on the illustrator concretely how to work on homosexuality is not easy. I feel the deontological and methodological difficulties of making the field “at home” on a taboo subject such as homosexuality (in view of the legal and social situation of homosexuality in Senegal) and present the postures I adopted. This question is indeed crucial when the researcher is a woman, Muslim and Senegalese. At the same time, I will discuss the difficulty of respecting anonymity and confidentiality in the face of NGO solicitations and the requirements of the Senegal National Research Ethics Committee. It is a matter of showing ethnographic ethics. It cannot be summed up as a set of rules defined a priori by a committee, but rather as opposed to contextual and pragmatic approach.