Silenced for Their Own Protection: How the IRB Marginalizes those it Feigns to Protect

2015/03/08 by Matt Bradley, Bradley, Matt
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Foucault, Power, and Ethics #Homelessness and Social Issues #IRB #Torture, Ethics, and Law #documentary #marginalization #marginalized population #representation #vulnerable population

paper · doi:10.14288/acme.v6i3.782

openalex publication_date 2015/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01

Abstract

This paper provides a critique of the way IRBs can maintain the marginalization of ‘vulnerable’ populations through an insistence on anonymity that can run counter to a group’s desire to choose how to represent themselves. I explore the relationship between anonymity and risks and benefits in a discussion of my own experience negotiating with an IRB over a proposed participatory action research project that involved youth in the production of a documentary video.

Related

• Designing Anonymity
• Invisibilization and Silencing as an Ethical and Sociological Challenge
• Breaking the Silence: Critical discussion of a youth participatory action research project
• What Do We Fear? Expected Sanctions for Expressing Minority Opinions in Offline and Online Communication
• Extending the Spiral of Silence: Theorizing a Typology of Political Self-Silencing