[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

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