Exploring Ethics in Research through Ethnography

Overview of Session Literature Review: Our Findings Ethnographic Practice Ethics as Contract Ethics as Practice

Sharing our Search Strategies

In small groups think about how you would define culture? Why is culture important? How is culture a feature of any social research you might try to do? Clifford Geertz wrote that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun… I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretative one in search of meaning.

Culture is ordinary: that is the first fact. Every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in institutions, and in arts and learning. The making of a society is the finding of common meanings and directions, and its growth is an active debate and amendment under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery, writing themselves into the land. The growing society is there, yet it is also made and remade in every individual mind. The making of a mind is, first, the slow learning of shapes, purposes, and meanings, so that work, observation and communication are possible. Then, second, but equal in importance, is the testing of these in experience, the making of new observations, comparisons, and meanings. A culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested.

Ethnography is... “making the familiar strange and the strange familiar” (Sunstein and Chiseri Strater 1997, 8)

Thick Descriptions While observing a culture, pay attention to the items around you and to what the people in the culture do with those items. Pay attention to the items that seem important, useful, or indispensable to the members of the culture. Begin by noticing the appearance, size, texture, and other visible qualities of artifacts in the context. Ask yourself what the events or behaviors you have observed means for the culture. What is their significance for the members of the culture and how it might be different from you or your readers ascribe to these events. If there is such a difference, what would you do as a researcher and a writer to explain the events or behavior to outsiders? Ask yourself about your subjective responses and reactions to what you are observing. How do your existing experiences, ideas, biases, and cultural affiliations contribute to your understanding of the culture you are studying?

From Description to Study Observations and reflections on them Interview questions, answers, and reflections Descriptions of cultural artifacts and their readings Research questions Notes to self to follow up on something or to ask more questions Research leads and ideas Reflections on what is and is not working in the project Summaries and reflections on secondary research you are using in your project Meta-cognitive reflections of what you are learning about your research and yourself as a reader, writer, and learner during your research

How to Approach Ethics Using exercise as starting point what ethical issues might come up in practice based research? What would guide you in handling them?

A Brief Institutional History Ethical Concerns driven by history of medical research malpractice. (Foucault, Birth of the Clinic, Naomi Klien, Shock and Awe) Institutionalisation of Ethics Procedures driven by litigation culture. Legal systems deal in events rather than processes, facts rather than relationships.

Let’s compare CLD Values Primary client. Social context Equity Empowerment Duty of Care Corruption Transparency Confidentiality Cooperation Professional Development Self-awareness Boundaries Self-care Ethical Principles Non-maleficence - Do no harm Beneficence - Do positive good Autonomy - Show respect for rights of self- determination Justice - Treat people fairly

Ethics as Way of Being authenticity reciprocity Intersubjectivity Or deeper exploitation? Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography p , In Women’s Words, Daphne Patia, Sherna Berger Gluck 1991.