Ethical Procedures? A Critical Intervention: The sacred, the profane, and the planet

Abstract

Issues relating to ethical clearance, how these procedures relate to very different ontologies, ways of making sense,conditions of existence, and the ideological implications thereof are critically discussed.   Written as an invited intervention, the author takes readers through a variety of paradigms: indigenous approaches involving the sacred and the profane, instrumentalization of research; multispeciesism and research as a lived practice. Comments are offered on the nature of science and some questions are posed on the contradictions of ethical practices that readers encounter. The method is eclectic, read through a Peirceian pragmatism, and the outcome proposes relationality rather than the inevitability of discrete findings. Some conclusions are offered on the geographical distribution of populations sampled.