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Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies

This paper explores the quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian aid workers and their agencies. We focus specifically on public health emergencies, such as COVID-19. The authors undertook a literature review and gathered empirical data through semi-structured focus group discussi...

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Autores principales: Sheather, Julian, Apunyo, Ronald, DuBois, Marc, Khondaker, Ruma, Noman, Abdullahal, Sadique, Sohana, McGowan, Catherine R
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8927930/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35296461
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-007707
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author Sheather, Julian
Apunyo, Ronald
DuBois, Marc
Khondaker, Ruma
Noman, Abdullahal
Sadique, Sohana
McGowan, Catherine R
author_facet Sheather, Julian
Apunyo, Ronald
DuBois, Marc
Khondaker, Ruma
Noman, Abdullahal
Sadique, Sohana
McGowan, Catherine R
author_sort Sheather, Julian
collection PubMed
description This paper explores the quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian aid workers and their agencies. We focus specifically on public health emergencies, such as COVID-19. The authors undertook a literature review and gathered empirical data through semi-structured focus group discussions amongst front-line workers from health clinics in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh and in the Abyei Special Administrative Area, South Sudan. The purpose of the project was to identify how front-line workers respond to ethical challenges, including any informal or local decision-making processes, support networks, or habits of response. The research findings highlighted a dissonance between ethical guidance and the experiences of front-line humanitarian health workers. They suggest the possibility: (1) that few problems confronting front-line workers are conceived, described, or resolved as ethical problems; and (2) of significant dissonance between available, allegedly practically oriented guidance (often produced by academics in North America and Europe), and the immediate issues confronting front-line workers. The literature review and focus group data suggest a real possibility that there is, at best, a significant epistemic gulf between those who produce ethical guidelines and those engaged in real-time problem solving at the point of contact with people. At worst they suggest a form of epistemic control—an imposition of cognitive shapes that shoehorn the round peg of theoretical preoccupations and the disciplinary boundaries of western academies into the square hole of front-line humanitarian practice.
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spelling pubmed-89279302022-03-17 Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies Sheather, Julian Apunyo, Ronald DuBois, Marc Khondaker, Ruma Noman, Abdullahal Sadique, Sohana McGowan, Catherine R BMJ Glob Health Analysis This paper explores the quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian aid workers and their agencies. We focus specifically on public health emergencies, such as COVID-19. The authors undertook a literature review and gathered empirical data through semi-structured focus group discussions amongst front-line workers from health clinics in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh and in the Abyei Special Administrative Area, South Sudan. The purpose of the project was to identify how front-line workers respond to ethical challenges, including any informal or local decision-making processes, support networks, or habits of response. The research findings highlighted a dissonance between ethical guidance and the experiences of front-line humanitarian health workers. They suggest the possibility: (1) that few problems confronting front-line workers are conceived, described, or resolved as ethical problems; and (2) of significant dissonance between available, allegedly practically oriented guidance (often produced by academics in North America and Europe), and the immediate issues confronting front-line workers. The literature review and focus group data suggest a real possibility that there is, at best, a significant epistemic gulf between those who produce ethical guidelines and those engaged in real-time problem solving at the point of contact with people. At worst they suggest a form of epistemic control—an imposition of cognitive shapes that shoehorn the round peg of theoretical preoccupations and the disciplinary boundaries of western academies into the square hole of front-line humanitarian practice. BMJ Publishing Group 2022-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8927930/ /pubmed/35296461 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-007707 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Analysis
Sheather, Julian
Apunyo, Ronald
DuBois, Marc
Khondaker, Ruma
Noman, Abdullahal
Sadique, Sohana
McGowan, Catherine R
Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies
title Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies
title_full Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies
title_fullStr Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies
title_full_unstemmed Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies
title_short Ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? The quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies
title_sort ethical guidance or epistemological injustice? the quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian workers and agencies
topic Analysis
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8927930/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35296461
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-007707
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