Ethics
It’ s high time?
The San issue ethics code for scientists
By Carol Posthumus
Cape Town- In retrospect, the trouble with being welcoming to visitors( researchers actually) who have travelled from afar to your community – as the San sadly found to their horror – is that often your new found“ friends” greedily make off, like thieves in the night, with centuries of your indigenous knowledge and unique thoughts for their own commercial gain or academic vanity. Proverbially not looking back while the communities’ intellectual riches are plundered, and the people remain poverty-stricken.
But making research history on the African continent recently at a gathering at The Company Gardens in Cape Town, attended by with the Kimberley-based San Institute Council, community members of the San and individuals from the worlds of academia
– from the TRUST Project – a San Code of Ethics was launched.
The Trust Project, EU-backed, is a plurastic project, a global collaborative, that looks to improve adherence to the highest ethical standards around the world.
The aim is to protect vulnerable communities where research is often carried out.
Speaking, in Afrikaans with a translator, at the launch Mario Mahongo acting chair of the San Council reflected on the words of the late and highly respected San leader Andries Steenkamp who asked that“ researchers come through the door, not through the window.” Steenkamp did much work on the Code of Ethics and a minute’ s silence was observed in his memory.
Knock please
He said:“ The door stands for San processes. When researchers respect the door, the San can have research that is positive for us.” Hopefully they won’ t come through the window any more like skelms( thieves) and knock at the appropriate doors of the San community.
Mahongo said that some of the research may be of benefit and fine use to the San, who say they have over the years been bombarded by researchers coming to the Kalahari looking into their language, genetics, hunter-gatherer lifestyle and medicinal plants and herbs,“ The problem is that often our communities do not benefit from this research, and remain in poverty, when we should also benefit from developments in food and medicinal products, that have derived from our knowledge.”
Boundaries
San Council member Leana Snyders said they were delighted with the launch of the San Code of Ethics, which is aimed at stopping exploitation and sets personal boundaries, so the San’ s knowledge and information is not a free-for-all.
The journal Nature published the news of the San Code of Ethics, recalled the 2010 publication of the human genome sequence of four elderly San men in Namibia and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and how this drew attention to the area of ethical approval. This research was widely perceived as immensely insulting.
The launch was attended by a large group of South Africans and people from around the world who work in the arenas of advancing ethics. Professor Klaus Leisinger, president of the Foundation of Global Values Alliance, commented that the San Code of Ethics is a milestone for the creation of fair research conditions.
“ The values“ respect”,“ honesty”,“ justice and fairness” and“ care” are applied to North- South research cooperation. The objective is that exploitative practices are avoided, participants treated as human beings and not as“ subjects” and making sure that the community in which research is done participates in benefit sharing,” he said. Prof Leisinger said that such a Code of Ethics should, indeed, become obligatory for all institutions involved in research.
The San Code of Ethics requires:
• Respect
• Honesty
• Justice and Fairness
• Care
The South African San Institute are contactable on admin @ sasi. org. za
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SABI | APRIL / MAY 2017