[Air-l] ethics of recording publicly observed interactions

[Gina Neff]

A quick side note on Nancy's very thoughtful post: 

"3. I am very uncomfortable with the idea that ALL research studying 
online interaction requires consent of those studied. As I've said 
before on this list, for me, this becomes most troubling in cases 
where people are studying hate groups."

Agreed. But even within hate groups, sociologists have effectively
conducted *overt* research. As Kathleen Blee's excellent "Inside
Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement" shows, even in *offline*
interactions, researchers can still neogiate research access to people
with pretty horrendous politics. Too often we as ethnographers are too
quick to dismiss the possiblitity of access to social worlds radically
different than our own. It may be ethical to conduct covert research on
these groups, but as Blee shows, one can often get much better and much
more politically useful information if the research is done openly.

Gina

Gina Neff
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute for Labor and Employment
UCLA