Personal experiences with tribal irbs, hidden hegemony of researchers, and the need for an inter-cultural approach: Views from an american indian researcher

J. Neil Henderson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

In approximately the last 20 years, the self-protection capacity of many American Indian tribes has significantly increased to include the review of research requests by a tribally based IRB. While these tribal IRBs are trained using a curriculum derived from the Belmont Report, there is need to recognize the cultural specificity of the Belmont Report and its potential for conflict or inappropriateness when applied to populations with deep differences in cultural constructs compared to the majority population. However, recognition of the sometimes paradigmatically different culture of American Indian tribes compared to the U.S. culture at large seldom occurs. Moreover, significant and subtle factors of researchers' professional, organizational, and personal cultures that relate to the research enterprise are essentially never addressed by themselves or the tribal IRB. Nonetheless, tribal IRBs continue and serve as a procedural guide for investigators intending to conduct respectful research with American Indian populations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)44-51
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics
Volume46
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The university and its agents of research who are embedded and sometimes ensnared in multiple organizational bureaucracies are one side of the inter-cultural dynamic. Such bureaucracies include, for land-grant institutions, their state government legislatures and their changing proclivities and priorities, as well as the organizational facets of the agency from which the funding derives, such as the National Institutes of Health. The combination of these bureaucratic entities and their procedural rules can comprise a collective set of demands that can at times serve to facilitate research and at times serve to constrain the research enterprise, such as in time and/or money limits.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).

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