This course is a part of HF's PhD week.
Fieldwork is about much more than going somewhere and doing research interviews. First, you may not be interested only or primarily in people, but rather in objects or animals. Second, the places we do fieldwork impose differing constraints, possibilities and ethical considerations. It matters a lot whether you interview people about their political views in a democratic context such as Norway or in an authoritarian context such as Egypt; and sometimes the field is not even a physical place, but forums or communities on the internet. Regardless of context, researchers need to think about how they recruit informants, how they treat and relate to them during the data gathering, and how their intervention as researchers affects the data they obtain. The course is designed to equip participants with a set of practical tools they can put to use in their fieldwork as well as a set of critical reflections about their own role and positionality.
This is a 1 ECTS course.
Language
The course language is English.
Registration
The course is open to PhD fellows, completion grant holders, and post-doctoral fellows at the Faculty of Humanities, other UiO faculties and external PhD fellows.
Registration opens 8 March at 12 noon and closes 15 March at 12 noon. Priority will be given to PhDs from the Faculty of Humanities, then PhDs from other Faculties at UiO, and lastly other applicants.
From March 17th, you may register for the course if there are still seats available.
Course convenors
Olga Djordjilovic, Jacob Høigilt, Vita Kvedaraite, Aike Rots (all at IKOS)
Contact person: Jacob Høigilt, jacob.hoigilt@ikos.uio.uio.no
IKOS, responsible department
Prerequisites
All participants are required to write a 1,000 word reflection paper where they relate their project to one or more of the curriculum contributions and the ethical aspects discussed there. The reflection papers will be presented and discussed during the workshop. Please send your reflection paper to jacob.hoigilt@ikos.uio.no no later than Friday 19. May.
All participants are also required to fill out and submit online questionnaire about their needs and expectations from the course.
Fill out the questionnaire here
Program
The program is divided into two major parts. Before lunch, there will be presentations, with ample room for discussion. The time slots after lunch are set aside for group work based on the reflection papers and a set of cases to discuss and solve after a brief introduction.
Friday 9-16
09:00-09:15 Introduction: What is research ethics? Brief presentation of participants.
09:15-10:30 Data collection and processing: Practical/institutional requirements and ethical considerations. Presentation by Olga Djordjilovic and Vita Kvedaraite, IKOS.
10:30-10:45 15 minutes break
10:45-12:00 Field work and interviews from uncomplicated to very complicated contexts. Presentation by Aike Rots and intervention by Jacob Høigilt, IKOS
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:00 Group work: Discussion of reflection papers
14:00-14:15 Break
14:15-15:00 Group work: Discussion of ethical case studies
15:00-15:15 Break
15:15-16:00 Plenary discussion of case studies; wrapping up the course
Course curriculum
1. Campbell, John. ‘The “Problem” of Ethics in Contemporary Anthropological Research’. Anthropology Matters 12, no. 1 (2010). https://doi.org/10.22582/am.v12i1.186.
2. Glasius, Marlies, Meta de Lange, Jos Bartman, Emanuela Dalmasso, Aofei Lv, Adele Del Sordi, Marcus Michaelsen, and Kris Ruijgrok. Research, Ethics and Risk in the Authoritarian Field. Springer Nature, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68966-1.
3. Kostovicova, Denisa, and Eleanor Knott. ‘Harm, Change and Unpredictability: The Ethics of Interviews in Conflict Research’. Qualitative Research : QR 22, no. 1 (2022): 56–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120975657.
4. Friesike, Sascha, and Sönke Bartling. Opening Science : The Evolving Guide on How the Internet Is Changing Research, Collaboration and Scholarly Publishing. Cham: Springer Open, 2014, Chapters 2 and 4. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/28008/1001989.pdf?sequence=1#page=24
5. Lee, M.C.Y. An Insider’s Moments of Confucian Ethical Conflict: Reflexivity as the “Middle Way” Response. J Acad Ethics 12, 299–316 (2014). https://doi-org.ezproxy.uio.no/10.1007/s10805-014-9217-z
6. Madison, D. (2020). Ethics. In Critical ethnography (pp. 99-130). SAGE Publications, Inc, https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781071878965.n4
7. NESH. 2022. “Research Participants”, in Guidelines for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities. https://www.forskningsetikk.no/en/guidelines/social-sciences-humanities-law-and-theology/guidelines-for-research-ethics-in-the-social-sciences-humanities-law-and-theology/
8. https://ocsdnet.org/manifesto/open-science-manifesto/ (3 minute video manifesto)
9. The Berlin Declaration, https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration
10. Anderson, Jedidiah C., Erik Skare, and Courtney Dorroll. ‘Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear? Tools and Suggestions for Digital Data Protection’. Qualitative Report 23, no. 5 (2018): 1223–36. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3328.
11. Baalen, Sebastian van. ‘“Google Wants to Know Your Location”: The Ethical Challenges of Fieldwork in the Digital Age’. Research Ethics Review 14, no. 4 (2018): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117750312.
Recommended reading
Guidelines for anthropological research: Data management, ethics, and integrity
Data management in anthropology: the next phase in ethics governance?
Günel, Gökçe, Saiba Varma, and Chika Watanabe. 2020. "A Manifesto for Patchwork Ethnography." Member Voices, Fieldsights, June 9. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/a-manifesto-for-patchwork-ethnography