Ethical Issues in Conducting Research With Native Hawaiians - Essay Example

Running Head: Ethical Issues in Research Ethical Issues in Conducting Research with Native American Indians [Institute’s Ethical Issues in Conducting Research with Native American Indians Introduction This informative, analytical, and critical paper of psychology about ethical issues in conducting research with Native American Indians presents the number of facts about important ethical issues concerning Native Hawaiians, such as informed consent, language barrier, etc. Furthermore, it is also shedding light on resistance and ambivalence of Native Hawaiians to research due to history of colonization, language barrier, researchers must be culturally relevant or culturally appropriate, informed consent and confidentiality. In addition, it’s also being discussed in this paper that how are Native Hawaiians Impacted by Research, the concepts that could arise ethically as well as how Native Hawaiians is an issue that will do more cause than harm or harm than cause. Ethics issues are part of moral philosophy, a division of philosophy, which seeks to deal with questions about integrity such as what the primary semantic, ontological, and epistemic natural times past of ethics or ethics is meta-ethics. How moral values be supposed to unwavering normative moral principles, how an ethical outcome can be achieved in specific state of affairs’ functional ethics, how ethical capacity or moral agency can develop, and what its natural world is moral psychology, as well as what moral values populace actually put up with vivid ethics (Blaisdell, 1998). In specific, in the mid 1800s, the United States colonized the ex-monarchy of Hawaii, and Native Hawaiians are the aboriginal representatives of that monarchy. What’s more important to be notice is that in Hawaii, territory and natural possessions are the cause of culture, livelihoods, physical condition, and existence itself (Native Hawaiian Study Commission, 1983). In addition, the native values and main beliefs of land stewardship primarily defined the system of permanent status, as well as use in the Hawaiian Islands. Moreover, it was separate from that of new Pacific Islands. In addition, there are the forces of transformation, which led to the concern of an organization of land possession that retained rights of entry for conventional and usual inhabitant Hawaiian survival, cultural, and spiritual principles. Resistance & Ambiguity Researches (Mokuau & Matsuoka, 1995) related to ethnic communities have specified that during recent years, indigenous communities are confronting cultural corrosion due to wave of globalization, as well as due to realization of an urgent need for personal identity on the worldly arena. In this regard, a number of ethnic communities are facing threats of even extinction, and thus, it has now become very imperative for researchers to face this issue and carry out studies to understand them in a more effective manner, essential for their own survival. Since colonization, ethnic communities have shown a kind of resistance and turbulence in terms of sharing their materialistic and metaphysical resources with others, and this is the most crucial issue confronted during ethnic researches. Such resistance is evident in Hawaiian community as well that has resulted in a number of social and health-related disparities and problems in the population. Absence of a Western-based education system is another factor that represents learning system of Native Hawaiians as an ambiguous entity for a majority of researches. In the year 1893, the United States overthrew monarchy in an illegal manner, and adverse effects of such deterioration of Native Hawaiians’ self-determination are evident in their practice that is a crucial ethical issue confronted during researches (Mokuau & Matsuoka, 1995). Studies (Mokuau & Matsuoka, 1995) related to Native Hawaiians have indicated that overthrown of Hawaii’s monarchy was not the only step that caused resistance and ambiguity in this ethnic community, and this ethnic population has confronted a series of blusters that took them apart from the majority. For example, intrusion by James Cook in 1778 provided control of Hawaii’s possessions to Western powers. Within forty years of this intrusion, Native Hawaiians began to confront thrashing of their cultural values due to lack of awareness and competence in Westerners at that time, and lastly, a major blow of overthrown of monarchy in the year 1893 cemented the factor of resistance, ambiguity, turbulence, etc in Native Hawaiian’s community. Language & Cultural Barriers Since centuries, language and culture have played a crucial and significant role in the development of one’s society or community; however, since few decades, globalization has resulted in carrying out of various researches on global level that has introduced and encouraged the notions of cultural awareness, cultural relativism, and cultural competence in the field of research and particularly, anthropology. In the past, experts (Hurdle, 2002) endeavored to investigate and understand one’s culture or community based on their own preconceived concepts that caused ambiguous results in the research. Thus, now a huge number of researchers are struggling to promote cultural diversity and cultural competence as essential requisite for carrying out researches in a society or community, particularly in ethnic communities. For example, ‘folk healing’ (Hurdle, 2002) is an imperative cultural practice involving medical treatments based on traditional and historical traditions of the Native Hawaiian community. In other words, such healing involves philosophical and ethnic concepts of Native Hawaiians to treat their own problems, and thus, it becomes very important for researchers to be aware of such phenomena in ethnic community of Native Hawaiians. In this regard, a number of researches (Green, 1982) and experts (Hurdle, 2002) are now striving to acquire comprehensive knowledge about cultural traditions, as well as Hawaiian language to understand this culture in an efficient manner. Additionally, studies (Hurdle, 2002) have specified that researches confront the issue of lack of written manuscripts, as Native Hawaiians is more of a kind of oral culture that is another major issue in researches. Confidentiality As earlier mentioned that Native Hawaiians represent an oral history of culture, thus, interpersonal communication involving interviews is the only methodology that allows experts and anthropologists to carry out researches on this ethnic community (Mokuau & Browne, 1994). The major reason is absence of written manuscripts, and in oral methodologies, researchers confront two major ethical issues of confidentiality and another issue, discussed in later section of the paper. Researchers (Mokuau & Browne, 1994) have specified that women in Hawaiian community play a significant and crucial role in the development of fundamental pillars of relationships, understanding, and bonding. Besides interviewing male elders of the Hawaiian community, experts are focusing primarily on Native Hawaiian women that are able to indicate and express existence and presence of various ethnic notions in their cultural lives. Specifically, the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaii (Mokuau & Browne, 1994) has proposed three major stages of research that include preparation, interview, and preservation. In all these three stages, confidentiality is the crucial factor in researches, as the center has instructed experts to firstly ensure privacy and confidentiality of interviews that provide comfortable environment to Hawaiian populace, especially Native Hawaiian women, essential for collecting important data and information related to this ethnic population. As earlier mentioned, Native Hawaiians are already expressing signs of turbulence and resistance, and thus, lack of confidentiality may cause severe deterioration in the community that is not an objective of researchers interested in understanding Hawaiian culture globally. Informed Consent During the first phase of data collection, researchers identify a criteria used for the selection of participants for the research. In the past, experts carried out researches without informing the participants from Native Hawaiian community, and depended on uninformed interviews and studies in an anthropological manner. However, in recent years, informed consent is one of the most crucial issues promoted and encouraged in the field of research (Mokuau & Browne, 2009). One of the major reasons of such encouragement of informed consent is the result of few studies that involved uninformed interviews, and their outcomes showed huge deterioration of emotions of Hawaiian populace after knowing their status as research participants. Experts (Mokuau & Browne, 2009) now consider it as an unethical practice to carry out researches without acquiring informed consent of participants, and, thus, informed consent is the first phase of data collection in every research process, especially researches and studies focusing on ethnic communities, such as Native Hawaiian population. One of the benefits of acquiring informed consent is the higher level of comfort of participants, and lower level of resistance and confusion from them that facilitate experts to acquire valuable information in a comprehensive manner without affecting their cultural values (Mokuau & Browne, 2009). Due to this benefit and a number of other advantages, most of the recent researches are considering the notion of informed consent during its preparation stage that is playing a significant role in acquiring and gathering information about ethnic communities like Native Hawaiians around the globe. Conclusion As discussed in the paper, Native Hawaiians have confronted huge deterioration of their cultural values, traditional notions, and exploitation of their possessions and resources since the intrusion of James Cook in the year 1778 followed by a series of incidents that dismantled their position socially, economically, as well as culturally. Before researches, Native Hawaiians were a hidden entity in terms of their rights and capacities; however, recent studies have indicated that they are confronting huge disparities in terms of health, education, and necessities available to other population in the region. In other words, researches have uncovered various facts about Native Hawaiians, misunderstood earlier causing communication and cultural gaps with other societies and communities globally. In this regard, research is playing a vital and crucial role in facilitating Native Hawaiians in acquiring their own identity that will allow them to develop, progress, and contribute in their own society, as well as globally. Conclusively, the paper has discussed some of the significant aspects of ethical issues confronted while carrying out researches in ethnic communities, especially in Native Hawaiian community. It is an expectation that the paper will be beneficial for students, teachers, and professionals in better understanding of the topic. References Blaisdell, K. (1989). “Hawaiians are still the States landless.” Honolulu Star Bulletin. pp. 13. Green, J. (1982). Cultural awareness in the human services. Prentice-Hall. Hurdle, D. E. (2002). Native Hawaiian Traditional Healing. National Association of Social Workers. Mokuau, N & Browne, C. (1994). Life Themes of Native Hawaiian Female Elders. National Association of Social Workers. Mokuau, N & Browne, C. (2009). Adversity & Resiliency in the Lives of Native Hawaiian Elders. National Association of Social Workers. Mokuau, N & Matsuoka, J. (1995). Turbulence among a Native People. National Association of Social Workers. Native Hawaiian Study Commission. (1983). “Report on culture, needs and concerns of native Hawaiians.” Pursuant to Public Law 96-585, Title III. Honolulu, HI. Read More