Beyond Traditional Ethics when Developing Assistive Technology for and with Deaf People in Developing Regions - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 294

concerns, the principal investigator must secure ethics permission or certifi cation
from an IRB.
For the most part, traditional ethics codes, both professional and academic, are
suffi cient to govern the IRB gatekeeping process, although that gatekeeping can
also exclude research that is controversial either politically or because it chal-
lenges paradigms. Nonetheless, limitations of applying traditional ethics codes
can appear, especially in technical scientifi c disciplines when nontraditional
research methods are chosen, e.g. action research or CBCD. This is not to say that
these established codes are not relevant. Their concerns must be addressed.
However, some aspects can be lacking in applicability and/or relevance to inter-
ventionist and transformative participatory research. In addition, the IRB as gate-
keeper raises the issue of the responsibility to exclude research that has negative
impact on 'subjects' or other aspects, such as the subject's community, as is often
the case with interventionist methods. While medical-oriented ethical concerns
tend to focus on the subject, usually an individual, Emanuel et al. ( 2004 ) extend
that further to address the subject's community and possibly an entire community
itself. Emanuel et al. ( 2004 ) also question whether it is ethical or not to pursue a
given research agenda, in addition to stipulating guidelines about how to conduct
the research.

2.1 Sociocultural Assumptions

A fi rst concern with intervention-driven research is that traditional and estab-
lished codes of ethics are only partially applicable to work in developing regions.
In our view, these codes can be written with assumptions about end users and their
environments and can also be read with similar tacit assumptions. For example,
the ACM/IEEE-CS code is oriented from and towards the developed world or
global North. It is not that this code of conduct does not address ICT4D issues. It
is more that the education and practice of Western-schooled technical researchers
do not necessarily give consideration to sensitive and non-tacit social and cultural
aspects of development issues. These issues can lead to the 'design-reality gap'
(Heeks 2002 ), where a researcher's tacit cultural assumptions can cause discon-
nect between perceived and actual user needs. This can result in a 'partial failure'
or 'white elephant'. The 'tyranny of participation' (Heeks 1999 ) is another mani-
festation of disconnect where a researcher may feel that methods employed are
participatory yet the reality may be very different due to power relations (Michener
1998 ). Cultural assumptions come with neocolonialism even, and especially, if
unintended. These issues are well-known traps that can be diffi cult to grasp by the
unaware or unprepared researcher. This applies to both novice and experienced
researchers, especially those schooled in the global North conducting research in
the global South or even those schooled in the global South in North-styled
institutions.