Ethic of Care

A moral and methodological framework, rooted in feminist philosophy, that centers relationships, responsibility, and responsiveness to the needs of others rather than abstract principles or transactional exchange. In accessibility and participatory research, an ethic of care shapes how researchers engage participants: building long-term relationships, providing logistical and emotional scaffolding (transportation, accommodations, decompression spaces), sharing power over research direction, and attending to participants’ wellbeing beyond the end of a study.