"You Still Takin' Notes?" Fieldwork and Problems of Informed Consent

My Auto/Ethnographic Dilemma: Who Owns the Story?

“…Like many ethnographers (Linneman 2003;Moon 2004;Stein 2001), I introduced myself with "partial truths" (Thorne 1980, p. 287). Barrie Thorne (1980) observes that "reviewing ethnographies to examine modes of self-introduction (when they are mentioned at all), I have been struck by the widespread use of partial truths" (p.287). Partial truths are a practical solution to the problem of gaining access to certain groups, and the canny ethnographer is usually skilled at wielding vague language to accomplish her research goals.…”

“…In my work on religion and homosexuality in the Bible Belt, the ethical issues I have wrestled with most often, and feel the most uneasy about, concern consent, demarcating the field, and weighing the project validity against the privacy of an individual research subject. Many ethnographers argue that even under conditions of the most transparency, consent is always partial because the subject of study can never be fully informed (Angrosino and Mays de Perez 2003;Irwin 2006;Johnston 2010;O'Brien 2010;Thorne 1980). In other words, when what constitutes fully informed consent is itself blurry, especially in the case of field observations, which are not held to the same rules of IRB approval and consent forms as audio taped interviews, how do I decide whether to include or exclude meaningful data?…”

Autonomy and Compliance: How Qualitative Sociologists Respond to Institutional Ethical Oversight

“…A significant part of this literature consists of normative and theoretical arguments regarding the applicability of ethical oversight (at least in its current state) to qualitative and ethnographic methods. Those who question applicability often point to a perceived biomedical and/or quantitative bias in ethics requirements (Murphy and Dingwall 2007;Bosk and De Vries 2004;Thorne 1980). It is argued that standard ethical requirements that may fit relatively easily into experimental or quantitative research are far more problematic for qualitative researchers, such as the attempt to provide guaranteed anonymity (Van den Hoonaard 2003) and full informed consent (Murphy and Dingwall 2007;Barrett and Parker 2003;Thorne 1980).…”

“…Anecdotal accounts have also been presented to suggest that undergoing ethics review makes academics more internally conflicted about their research, particularly for those researchers whose own ethical views diverge from those of their ethics boards (Halse and Honey 2005;Baez 2002;Thorne 1980;Rambo 2007), or when research experiences do not conform to assumptions implicit in ethical guidelines (Barrett and Parker 2003). 3 As for strategy, we draw on insights provided by one of the few empirical studies that focuses specifically on researchers (Bledsoe et al 2007).…”

“…The dilemma is made even more acute by the "emergent nature" of qualitative research (Katz 2006). Qualitative research involves responding in real time to developments that are occurring in the field, and researchers may, and often do, confront situations in which the application of ethics policies is ambiguous (Thorne 1980;Barrett and Parker 2003;Haggerty 2004, pp. 404-405).…”