ABSTRACT
The University of Tennessee Green Economy Initiative is a project that pursues standard research goals while also engaging in outreach within the local community. In both functions, this is a deeply political project. For me, the political implications of research often extend beyond the ethics of the standards protecting research participants. This focus on politics concentrates more on the impact researchers try to have on the social problem with which she or he is engaged. This project’s original and continuing political intention is to use a labor market change to empower workers economically, with the expectation that this will lead to empowering workers politically. As other collaborators joined the project, a diversity of goals became apparent. The goals of those collaborators highlighted different concerns from those normally attended to by ethical research procedures.
