Saturday, 9 July 2016

What constitutes a declarable conflict of interest in gender studies?


From Wikipedia:



A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial interest, or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the individual or organization.



Question: In the context of gender studies, what constitutes a declarable conflict of interest in gender studies?


As some hypothetical examples:





  • A woman scientist is writing about male violence against women, and is herself a victim of such violence.




  • An LGBT person is writing about an LGBT topic.




In both cases, the work will likely be influenced to some degree by the author's personal experience, i.e., one could argue that there is a conflict of interest. However, it seems unreasonable to insist that a victim of violence declare the fact. Similarly, it seems unreasonable for an LGBT person to declare their LGBT status, and possibly face discrimination as a result.


In these scenarios, there's a conflict of interest in declaring a possible conflict of interest.




Answer



Usually, these relationships are financial.


For example:




  • In a paper talking about how Twitter has failed to police harassment, a professor who's an investor in an early-stage social network competitor would have to declare that.




  • Similarly, board memberships, speaking gigs, etc. are things that would have to be declared. For example, while writing a paper about abortion access rights, a professor should disclose if she was a paid speaker for a pro-choice advocacy group.





Generally, "I really care about this" for personal reasons doesn't so much count as a conflict of interest. I cannot imagine, for example, a journal intending for those writing in gender studies to disclose if they had been victims of intimate partner violence.


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