Abstract

This chapter introduces the section about encounters with systems in critical research. Each chapter presents a particular critical angle on ethics committees as the primary system that critical researchers, like all health researchers and social researchers, are increasingly required to navigate. At the same time, the studies that provide the central stories in the chapters in this section feature encounters with a range of other social and health systems including healthcare organisations, non-governmental organisations, and universities. Together, the chapters in this section highlight the distinctions between health research and social research, between research and practice, between risk avoidance models of ethical bureaucracy and relational models of ethical researching, and between critical research and hegemonic biomedical models of research.