AI and Community-Based Research: Ethics and Interculturality

UK-based scholars, Dr Jessica Bradley and Dr Sarah Ganassin, shared their insights into how AI is reshaping the ethics and intercultural dimensions of community research in a Graduate School seminar on November 28, 2025. In an online session, attended by around 25 postgraduate students, they explored the challenges and affordances of speech-focused AI tools in contexts such as refugee support groups and participatory arts and health programmes. These two areas, the speakers noted, emphasise collaboration, long-term trust-building, and participatory methods—principles that are difficult for AI to replicate.

Drs Bradley and Ganassin stressed that AI cannot replace human researchers because it lacks reflexivity, which is crucial for navigating ethical dilemmas, adapting to community needs, and understanding complex social contexts. They appealed to researchers to maintain their area of specialism while being critically reflexive about AI’s implications for their work. The speakers pointed out that this requires researchers to critically educate themselves by taking a broader view as they navigate this new and evolving landscape.

Participants welcomed the seminar’s content, as many had been curious about how to balance the use of AI in research settings, especially when working in vulnerable and tight-knit communities.

Dr Jessica Bradley is a Senior Lecturer in Literacies and Language in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Dr Sara Ganassin is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Communication at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK.