Disciplinary Research Ethics Cultures in Disaster Settings: Understandings from Researchers After 3.11 in Japan

Research ethics can be bound by implicit disciplinary understandings of what constitutes risk and how these should be mitigated in the field. The area of health research in post-disaster contexts draws in researchers from a variety of disciplines who are interested in a range of questions. In analysing researchers’ experiences of research ethics in the context of the 3.11 disaster in Japan, this paper investigates the ways in which disciplinary cultures of ethics are problematised and negotiated in this setting. It explores researchers’ perceptions of the ways in which different disciplines understand ethical practice, how these differences are illuminated in the context of working in close proximity with affected communities in a post-disaster setting, and how research ethics committees are negotiated in relation to disciplinary difference. The paper indicates some ways in which diverse cultures of research ethics might be better managed in future contexts.