A call for opportunity-based ethics under risk-averse standards: taking advantage of uncertain co-creative entanglements for improved research collaborations and outcomes

Based on our own experiences as co-creative researchers, we aim to trouble dominant risk-aversive paradigms and crisis-prone imaginaries often put forward in institutional standards of research ethics and conduct. Rather than anticipating or ‘precautioning’ against indeterminate risks of harm and challenges that may occur in the field or later research stages, we argue for an opportunity-based, entangled ethics for co-creative research and related fields. Inspired by the agential realist approach of Karen Barad's feminist new materialism and other critical theories, opportunity-based ethics enables co-creative researchers to navigate and take advantage of the uncertainties that emerge in and through the dynamic (re)enactment of research relationalities for improved ethical and research conduct. Narrating our own co-creative research experiences through the lens of entangled theories, we question standardized anonymization and privacy measures, enhanced informed consent protocols for ‘vulnerable’ research participants, and the anticipation of potentially ‘harmful’ influences before commencement of the research. In asking whom/what is 'safeguarded' by risk-aversive ethical standards, and for whose/which benefit, we propose three ethical principles: relationality, response-ability, and situatedness. These principles open up alternative ways of relating to the human, non-human, and more-than-human that intrinsically make up co-creative research entanglements, while taking seriously the in-situ collaborations and outcomes that unfold across various places and times. In doing so, we contribute to enhance research quality and data richness, as well as improved participant wellbeing and collaborative research benefits.