As we look to the future in a world with porous borders and boundaries transgressed by technologies, an inevitable question is:Can there be a single, global bioethics? Intimately intertwined with this question is a second one: How might a global bioethics account for profound - and constantly transforming - sources of cultural difference? Can a uniform, global bioethics be relevant cross-culturally? These are not simple questions, rather, a multi-dimensional answer is required. It is important to distinguish between two meanings of (...) bioethics: the academic discipline of bioethics as opposed to bioethics as a set of practices governing clinical care and scientific research. There is growing evidence to support the notion of a shared global understanding of bioethics as a field of inquiry focused on the moral dimensions of science and biomedicine. (shrink)

This article explores the problematic relationship between ethics review and interpretive research that uses qualitative methods. Many investigators feel that the structure and process of ethics review—which is based on assumptions relevant to biomedical research—penalize those pursuing interpretive research. We locate the origins of the problem in issues of epistemology and power, then provide an overview of how these issues—as well as the current social organization of ethical review—affect the review of interpretive research. Finally, we summarize several solutions that have (...) been proposed in the literature, then propose our own novel “two stage/two body” review structure and process. (shrink)