# Disciplinary Research Ethics Cultures in Disaster Settings: Understandings from Researchers After 3.11 in Japan

## TL;DR

This paper explores how different research disciplines handle ethics in post-disaster settings, using the 3.11 disaster in Japan as a case study.

## Contribution

It highlights how disciplinary differences in ethics are negotiated when working with affected communities after disasters.

## Key findings

- Researchers from different disciplines have varying understandings of ethical risk and mitigation.
- Ethical practices are influenced by disciplinary cultures when working in post-disaster communities.
- Research ethics committees must navigate these disciplinary differences effectively.

## Abstract

Research ethics can be bound by implicit disciplinary understandings of what constitutes risk and how these should be mitigated in the field. The area of health research in post-disaster contexts draws in researchers from a variety of disciplines who are interested in a range of questions. In analysing researchers’ experiences of research ethics in the context of the 3.11 disaster in Japan, this paper investigates the ways in which disciplinary cultures of ethics are problematised and negotiated in this setting. It explores researchers’ perceptions of the ways in which different disciplines understand ethical practice, how these differences are illuminated in the context of working in close proximity with affected communities in a post-disaster setting, and how research ethics committees are negotiated in relation to disciplinary difference. The paper indicates some ways in which diverse cultures of research ethics might be better managed in future contexts.