(Re)Imagining the Ethics of Knowledge Creation: Moving Toward Loving and Undisciplined, Refusal-Oriented Community-Based Participatory Research

In this article, I build on decolonizing and participatory methodologies in order to unsettlethe limitations of institutional ethics frameworks and to (re)imagine the parameters of ethicalconduct in sociological research. Foregrounding the interconnections between ethics,epistemology, methodology, and politics, I interweave a vision of loving and undisciplinedcommunity-based participatory research (CBPR), grounded in decolonial refusal as both atheoretical and a practical orientation. Specifically, I argue that refusal-oriented CBPR may disturbthe prevailing compliance with colonizing logics in knowledge co-creation and create space forengaging historically marginalized communities more deliberately in the research process.Furthermore, I propose that by refusing CBPR's own decolonizing claims—through activenegotiation of both its decolonizing and colonizing aspects—researchers may use CBPR to fostercritically engaged, ethical practice and offer insights for other methodologies, where suchnegotiations may be less transparent. In doing so, I contribute to current debates within Germanyon embedding ethics and ethical reflexivity into the everyday practices of sociological research.