Reciprocity

TLDR

Ethical issues have long been a focus in community‑based participatory action research (CBPAR). The article proposes that reciprocity—an ongoing exchange aimed at equality—can guide ethical CBPAR practice, examines successes and challenges related to power and gain, and suggests how this ethic may benefit other CBPAR projects. The authors illustrate reciprocity in a mental‑health CBPAR project with immigrant communities in Ontario, detailing how reciprocal relationships were established and how they informed ethical practice. Their experience shows that reciprocal relationships enhance ethical practice and offers recommendations for applying reciprocity in future CBPAR initiatives.

Abstract

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.