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Action Research
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Reciprocity

An ethic for community-based participatory action research

Sarah Maiter

York University, Canada, smaiter{at}yorku.ca

Laura Simich

University of Toronto, Canada

Nora Jacobson

University of Toronto, Canada

Julie Wise

Centre for Research and Education in Human Services, Canada

Ethical issues have been of ongoing interest in discussions of community-based participatory action research (CBPAR). In this article we suggest that the notion of reciprocity — defined as an ongoing process of exchange with the aim of establishing and maintaining equality between parties — can provide a guide to the ethical practice of CBPAR. Through sharing our experiences with a CBPAR project focused on mental health services and supports in several cultural-linguistic immigrant communities in Ontario, Canada, we provide insights into our attempts at establishing reciprocal relationships with community members collaborating in the research study and discuss how these relationships contributed to ethical practice. We examine the successes and challenges with specific attention to issues of power and gain for the researched community. We begin with a discussion of the concept of reciprocity, followed by a description of how it was put into practice in our project, and, finally, conclude with suggestions for how an ethic of reciprocity might contribute to other CBPAR projects.

Key Words: community mental health • community-based participatory research • immigrant mental health • multiculturalism • reciprocity

Action Research, Vol. 6, No. 3, 305-325 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1476750307083720
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