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Reconsidering ethics in social and tourism research is an urgent task today, considering practices that, despite claiming to be participatory, continue to reproduce epistemic hierarchies and extractive relationships of knowledge. Through a critical and hermeneutic literature review of twenty-nine sources (2004–2023), this study highlights the necessity of incorporating ethics as a transversal axis in all research processes, especially in studies conducted with rural communities, indigenous peoples, and women, whose knowledge is often marginalized or instrumentalized. The analysis identifies three converging dimensions: epistemic-deontological ethics, focused on scientific and social responsibility; contextual bioethics, which adapts universal principles to the realities of different contexts; and relational-reflexive ethics, which promotes a dialogical logic between the researcher and the researched. The findings demonstrate that only a situated and co-produced ethics can ensure the legitimacy of knowledge, dignify local voices, and adapt methodologies to cultural contexts. This work invites the incorporation of ethics not as a formal requirement, but as a living practice that connects science, territory, and cognitive justice.