[Air-l] ethnography and ethics
Radhika Gajjala
radhika at cyberdiva.org
Mon May 10 04:35:16 PDT 2004
At 09:11 PM 5/9/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>I've always let the test be that I, as researcher, am out in the open in
>the plain view of the subject. If they are speaking loudly enough that I
>can hear without any special equipment, or effort, I treat the
>conversation as public talk freely available for analysis (and recording).
>In the case of the cell phone, I am not "tapping" the phone call illegally
>cause I can't hear the other side of the conversation.
but you'd be amazed at how shocked they would be if they then saw their
words quoted in a public(ation) text.
What is invaded is the Individual's *sense* of privacy - whatever the
medium used. It is in the recording and reproducing of things said in
contexts that they cannot themselves control that leads to questions of
ethics in such instances.
So who has the power to reproduce everyday conversations and place in
con(texts) where they get generalized and used for policy and other forms
of (mis) representation?
I doubt that any "ethics" document officially produced in Academic or
Corporate circles (not that the two are mutually exclusive) would ever be
complete in the consideration of what it means to have ethical
responsibility towards the groups of people that the research supposedly
represents and/or describes.
just my 2 cents.
r
http://www.cyberdiva.org
blogs: http://www.cyberdiva.org/cyberdiv/october
research and teaching: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik
info on forthcoming book:
http://www.altamirapress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0759106924
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