Principles for ethical research in the Himalayas: Decolonising research ethics across the disciplines

Abstract Research in the Himalayan region has long been shaped by uneven power relations, driven by extractive academic practices, global conservation agendas, and development interventions. Although often unintentional, these approaches have tended to prioritise data collection over reciprocal relationships, producing knowledge that benefits external actors while silencing or marginalising local perspectives and communities. In this paper, I propose a framework for ethical research that centres the agency, knowledge systems, and material realities of Himalayan communities and ecologies. Drawing from community-based and decolonial methodologies, this framework identifies six ethical principles designed to guide researchers in establishing collaborative, respectful, and non-extractive relationships with local peoples and ecologies. These principles include: (1) community collaboration from the outset, (2) Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, (3) knowledge co-production, (4) protection of situated cultural and ecological knowledges, (5) benefit sharing and reciprocity, and (6) long-term commitment and accountability. These principles extend beyond the social sciences, humanities and arts, requiring that all researchers, including those in STEM, environmental monitoring and natural sciences, address how their work risks reproducing colonial and epistemic asymmetries of power through extractive data practices and surveillance, including instrument deployment and sample collection, which can be perceived as acts of academic or institutional territorial claim-making. The paper also discusses the challenges and considerations required for operationalising ethical research principles. By focusing on local authority, lived ecological conditions, and knowledge sovereignty, this paper presents an ethical model for research that challenges extractivism and centres relational responsibility. It urges scholars, institutions, and funders to acknowledge the contested terrains of knowledge and power in which Himalayan communities are embedded—and to respond accordingly with care, humility, and commitment.