Gathering and sharing knowledge always creates ethical and political questions. Active discussion of ethical approaches to and questions about our research and technology development process and data sharing practices work is particularly important to public lab as we attempt to address community environmental health issues.

This page is a place to collect up, pose and discuss ethical questions raised by public laboratory work. While we don't think these questions can ever simply be answered, we aim to continually be developing, refining and adapting shared guidelines for public laboratory work in the aim of cultivating "civic science".

Over-arching Questions

What is "civic science"?

Anthropologists of science Mike and Kim Fortun have defined this as a science that is ethically committed to human welfare. Kim Fortun and Michael Fortun, "Scientific Imaginaries and Ethical Plateaus in Contemporary U.S. Toxicology," American Anthropologist 107:43-54 (2005).

How can/should public lab honor a commitment to human welfare in its process of tool development, in the design of the tools themselves, in the distribution and use of data generated by those tools?

Questions in Particular Projects:

How can and should public laboratory work with large-scale NGOs?

Early in 2011 Public lab was approached by the World Bank to develop a GRM mapping project in Togo to assist in disaster management. The project raised many questions that we are trying to wrestle with--is it still civic science if we are working with NGOs and Government? Should public lab engage in "development work"?

We are encountering similar issues in a project proposed by UNICEF in Rio. UNICEF is interested in helping communities develop environmental awareness through GRM. However the communities they want to map are currently being "passified" by police presence: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/12/rio-de-janeiro-police-occupy-slums. UNICEF wished Public Lab to train regional trainers to develop maps. Should Public Lab be involved in such "consultant" work?

Public Lab's staff has agreed to try these project as pilot tests for whether we think public lab should collaborate more long term with large-scale NGOs and governments in a "consultant" like basis. We have actively been developing terms and conditions for such work:

We have also been adapting Open Street Maps, ethical mapping guidelines to generate teaching materials for training trainers in Rio:

What else should we do? What other questions should we ask? What data should we gather to evaluate these projects?

Jeff--can we make it so list discussions about ethics are also archived here?