Course
Ethics for Ethnographic Research - 1.5 ECTS
Ethnographic research comes with a unique set of ethical challenges. As participant observers ethnographers are deeply embedded among the people they work with, and immersed in their daily lives. Lines between researcher, participant and collaborator regularly blur. Ethnographers’ raw data is often closely entwined with people’s daily lives, requiring particular sensibilities when it comes to ethics, data management and informed consent strategies. Simultaneously, fieldwork often puts ethnographers in positions of dependency and in vulnerable situations where the risk of violence or harassment – physical, emotional, or sexual – can be a reality. This course allows students to reflect on the ethical challenges of ethnographic research in general, and their individual projects in particular. The course will provide an opportunity to discuss how to prepare for, navigate, and mitigate the ethical dilemmas including risks in the field. Structured along the criteria of the WUR REF ethics review, the course further provides students with the necessary tools to prepare for such review including design of relevant informed consent procedures.
Learning outcomes
After successful completion participants are expected to be able to:
- Demonstrate the ethical challenges involved in their respective ethnographic research project
- Reflect on personal and professional boundaries in field settings, including potential vulnerabilities
- Defend their approach to ethnographic research from an ethical vantage point
- Assemble all the components, including informed consent procedures, for the WUR ethics review process
Activities:
Course activities includes short interactive lectures, open discussions, peer-review of ethics forms as well as individual work.
The 1.5 ECTS version of the course takes place over days 1, 2 and 3 with a focus on ethnographic ethics.
The 2 ECTS version extends the course by one day and allows students to prepare a guided and peer-reviewed draft of the REF ethics review form.
Preparation:
- WUR-REC - Intranet WUR, especially the ‘REC Presentation Ethics Review.pptx’, the Abv Ethical Guidelines and the Nethics () Ethical Code
- ·(for Day 1): Lie, R., & Witteveen, L. (2017). Visual informed consent: informed consent without forms.International Journal of Social Research Methodology 20(1): 63-75.
- ·(for Day 2): de Koning, M., Meyer, B., Moors, A., & Pels, P. (2019). Guidelines for anthropological research: Data management, ethics, and integrity.,(2), 170-174.
Day 1, October 14:
9:00-10:15: Interactive Introductory Lecture: Placing ethnography & ethics reviews in context: Why and how to account for ethics in ethnographic research, also institutionally? What challenges does the ethnographer face, in the field and when preparing an ethics review? Case study: the co-lecturers shared ethnographic research and its ethical dynamics, including reviews
10:15-10:30: Coffee break
10:30-11:30: Students briefly introduce their respective ethnographic research topics and three key anticipated ethical challenges (interactive, including both student presentations and open discussion) as foundation for engaged discussions in subsequent sessions
11:30-12:15: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions): REF indicators: 2. Participants; 3. Collaborators: Who are participants in ethnographic research? How do you account for vulnerability in ethnographic research? What is the difference between participants and collaborators in ethnography?
12:15-13:15: Lunch
13:15-14:45: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions): REF indicator 4. Informed Consent: What is informed consent in the context of ethnographic research? What are the challenges? What responses are there?
--- End of Formal Programme ---
Rest of Day 1: Independent Study (only for students completing the 1.5ECTS version of the course): students complete a 1st draft of parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the ‘application form ethics review’ and ‘informed consent template ethics review’.
Day 2, October 16:
9:00-9:30: Opening round/reflections from day 1 and transition to day 2
9:30-11:00: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions): REF indicator 6. Risks, negative impacts: What are risks of ethnographic researcher, for participants, collaborators and researchers? How to mitigate risks? How to determine which risks are worth taking, and which risks are not, and why?
11:00-11:15: Coffee break
11:15-12:00: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions) Part I: REF indicator 5. Privacy and personal data: What is ‘data’ in ethnographic research and what does ethical data management look like? How can we think of ethnographic data across epistemologies and ontologies?
12:00-13:00: Lunch
13:00-14:00 Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions) Part II: REF indicator 5. Privacy and personal data: What does ‘fair’ data management entail across diverse contexts? What is the difference between raw and processed data?
14:00-15:00: Conclusions (mini-lectures & open discussions): Ethics throughout ethnographic research, from conception to ethics review to field research, write up and dissemination – thinking longitudinally
--- End of Formal Programme ---
Rest of Day 2: Independent Study (only for students completing the 1.5ECTS version of the course): students complete a 1st draft of parts 5 and 6 of the ‘application form ethics review’
Day 3, October 28
10.00-10.30 Opening round/reflections from day 2 and transition to day 3
10:30-12:00: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions). Personal safety and doing fieldwork in a violent environment. How to prepare for doing fieldwork in violent settings? How can it have on impact on you and your research? How to navigate the field?
12:00-13:00: Lunch
13.00-13.45: Emotional impact (mini-lectures + discussions). How can direct and indirect experiences of violence have an impact on you as a person? How do you deal with these experiences?
13:45 – 14:00: Coffee break
14:00 – 15:00 Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions). What is sexualized harassment? What is (or should be) the role of universities? How do power relations, the researcher’s identity, and specific understandings of fieldwork (e.g., the heroic fieldworker) produce vulnerabilities and risks?
15:00 – 16:00: Risk-assessment (exercise + discussion). In the assessment, you will reflect on your own positionality, vulnerabilities and personal boundaries, and consider potential risks and safety strategies.
Day 4, October 30:
9:00-10:30: Independent Study: students peer-review two of their colleagues’ drafts of the ‘application form ethics review’ and ‘informed consent template ethics review’
--- Start of Formal Programme ---
10:30-12:00: Open discussion of completed and peer-reviewed 1st drafts of parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the ‘application form ethics review’ and ‘informed consent template ethics review’ - What problems arose? How to address these problems?
12:00-13:00: Lunch
13:00-14:30: Open discussion of completed and peer-reviewed 1st drafts of parts 5 and 6 of the ‘application form ethics review’ - What problems arose? How to address these problems?
14:30-15:30: Conclusions: Final reflections on the REF review process
Target group and min/max number of participants
3-15 participants
Assumed prior knowledge
Understanding of ethnographic research design (e.g. completion of the proposed new ‘Advanced Ethnography’ WASS PhD course) and ideally an already (partially) developed ethnographic research proposal.
Assessment
1 ECTS version:
- Individual presentation on ethics and individual PhD student projects (pass/fail)
- Active participation during the sessions (pass/fail)
Extra 0.5 ECTS:
- Completion of a 1st full draft of the 'application form ethics review' and 'informed consent template ethics review' (pass/fall)
- Peer-review of two colleague's drafts for the 'application form ethics review' and 'informed consent template ethics review' (pass/fall)
Course fees
| WGS PhDs with TSP | 200 |
| Other PhDs, postdocs and academic staff | 460 |
| All Others | 600 |