Ethics for Data Ownership in Social Science Funded Research

Abstract Over the last few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in addressing the problematic politics and ethics of global North/global South relations within social science research projects. This essay outlines the ethical concerns arising from the funded research in the Middle East, drawing attention to the relation between research and researched, outlining practices of power relations, positionality, and identity and insisting that these must be addressed within the context of an unequal global division of labor when it comes to social science research. It ends with some suggestions of a way forward to overcome these problems such as the democratization of data and funding transparency.