Before We Talk-Story About Authentic Representation, We Need to Talk About Relationality, Ethics, and Integrity Throughout Research and Publishing Networks

In an earlier article, I discussed performing talk-story, an Indigenous Research Methodology (IRM), as a means of co-creating data in Western contexts with sceptical participants. The methodological aim of IRMs is to address power imbalances between the researched and the researcher; thus, introducing relational accountability into the authentic representation of previously marginalized and/or silenced perspectives. However, adopting inclusive methodological approaches, which comply with guidance provided by Western ethics organisations and Ethics Review Boards (ERB) to establish the integrity of co-created data, is not the full story; indeed, I argue that they are effectively redundant until the representational research is published. This is because there is another level of potential power imbalance involved in the authentic representation of the researched, the peer review. Consequently, authentic representation is only achievable if everyone in the publishing network understands their ethical responsibilities and behaves with integrity and accountability. In this article, I explore a “what if” question, by adopting a hybrid factual/hypothetical story analysis to contemplate the role of co-destructive peer reviewers in facilitating/denying authentic representation in a spoiled field. I ask whether peer reviewers have an obligation to comply with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines to facilitate the publication of fresh perspectives that challenge existing beliefs. Alternatively, should an unaccountable use of negative ethics to insult other scholars’ publications, perpetuate culture wars, and/or the use of vulgar terminology to define the culture and intellect of study participants be tolerated? To address the hypothetical negative ethics of a minority, I propose that, where appropriate to the study purpose, ERB allow situational ethics to be employed by unilaterally removing selected confidentiality restrictions. This would promote transparency and encourage debate, thus eliminating a level of power imbalance between the researched and the peer reviewer that no relational methodological approach can circumvent.