The dimension of ethical-political commitment in social research

Abstract

The production of knowledge about social life is permeated on all sides by disputes over the practice that will take place around it. As we know, knowledge has political dimensions and can be translated into social practices, so that it is a mean of intervention and social transformation. The discussion that we will bring up in this text revolves around the active angle of knowledge, showing that it starts from the denaturalization of the social world and the consequent revelation of the political dimensions that govern it, bringing the ethical-political commitment as that which sets us in motion so that, through the process of denaturalization, we can generate political instruments of social intervention in the daily lives of those with whom we have made a commitment. Thus, we make an effort to demonstrate that scientific neutrality expresses a commitment as much as engagement, and those who start from the ethical-political commitment need, fundamentally, to destroy it in order to move forward. In this same sense, we bring the epistemological power that these researchers possess to engender new methodologies and epistemologies guided by the hope of transformation with a view to exposing the mechanisms that create a miserable daily life for trans*, black people, or, in a word, those who occupy marginalized positions in Brazilian society. Therefore, what this work strives to demonstrate is that the choice for ethical-political commitment is made by recognizing the active role of knowledge, and whose power guided over by it is fundamental if we intend to help our peers.

Keywords: Social transformation. Active angle of knowledge. Ethical-political commitment. Neutrality.