1. Rivkin-Fish’s Recommended Strategies: for Participating, Observing, Engaging
Presented to the GMTW: focus on Russia
Indiana University, 14-Sept, 2018

2. Formal Bureaucratic Hurdles: the IRB
PLAN AHEAD!
Get a copy of the form & questions necessary to address.
Is there a local IRB in Russia relevant for you? If not, get a letter explaining.
Consult with your local university colleagues about your IRB.
Consider contacting your local IRB before preparing your application.

3. IRB: Bureaucratic Surveillance of Ethics
What Ethical Dilemmas WILL --- MAY ---- COULD my project pose?
Acknowledge these in your IRB application & describe your strategies for preventing them.
Demonstrate your overriding commitment to upholding your professional ethics & the interests of your research subjects.

4. IRB- Informed Consent Process
Informed Consent is always required
WRITTEN Consent May be WAIVED
Provide a justification for why written consent is not appropriate in your case
An explanation of how you will alternatively ascertain consent or reluctance to participate is necessary
A Written description of your study, given to your subjects, is useful

5. Receiving IRB Approval does not Guarantee Your Research or your Behavior is Ethical
Anthropological Fieldwork = an iterative process, not bounded by the research;
Ethical dilemmas that arise can be Unpredictable
Power inequalities surpass the research framework
Fieldwork relationships that become life-long relationships have ethical dimensions similar to all other relationships in our lives

6. Fieldwork: A Whole Life Immersion
Do the Work of Building Relationships…
….With Continual Introspection
Reflect carefully on your judgments about what you observe
Try to learn how others evaluate the given situation & why their judgments differ from yours

7. Interviews are a Specific & Unusual Genre of Conversation
Briggs, Charles, Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research, Cambridge University Press
Reflect on how this atypical mode of communication shapes the material produced, communicated, and learned

8. Jotting- Describing- Writing- Coding- Memoing- Producing an Ethnography
Emerson, Fretz & Shaw 1995, 2011
How-To’s of Pursuing Community Members’ Meanings & Reflecting on Your Own
Capturing Categories of Knowledge in Use

9. Fieldwork Encounters are Precious Gems in Soap Bubbles
Events Accumulate & Details Get Forgotten Quickly;
Capture Each Encounter in Detailed Descriptions ASAP

10. Strategic Use of “Passive & Assertive” Purposefulness
Assertiveness:
Seek out opportunities to meet, connect, listen
Offer to help, volunteer, invite
Passiveness:
After explaining your goals, allow interlocutors who are inspired to recommend, take you, introduce you

11. Be Prepared for Delays, Rejection, Loneliness
Undertaking Fieldwork can involve slow starts, facing closed doors, enduring loneliness, lack of routine, self-doubt
Remember: Hurdles Can Often Become Important Data

12. Expect to be a Topic of Conversation!
Being an American / Foreigner in Russia Will Arouse Responses
Your Identity & Behavior will be Examined, Questioned, Judged;
Use this Knowledge Purposefully, from Developing Rapport to Being True to Yourself
Observe Your Observers: Their Responses Can Provide key Insights!
Expect to be a Topic of Conversation!

13. Keep in Mind the Long History Preceding You
July 1959: American
Expo in Moscow

14. Seek Out Multiple Viewpoints to Understand Disturbing Situations
Be Reflexive about Your Own Judgments
Explore Justifications, Silences, Multiple Layers of Inequalities, Misrecognitions
Take Time Before Coming to Final Conclusions

15. Participant-Observation-Engagement
Seek out Voices & Perspectives that Often Go Unheard
Maintain a Critical Perspective about the Partiality of All Perspectives
Join together a Sense of Humility with your Personal, Political, & Ethical Commitments