FW: IRBs

[Kephart, Ronald]

Folks, I posed this to Anthro-L and thought maybe it would be worthwhile
posting it here as well. By the way, I am the newest member of UNF¹s IRB,
and also the only one from social sciences.

Ron

------ Forwarded Message

Here at UNF we learned recently that the American Historical Association
has, if you will, cut a deal with the OHRP that "excludes" oral history from
IRB review. The exclusion means that people doing oral history no longer
have to go to their IRBs at all; they still, of course, have to get consent
for recordings etc. Part of the rationale for this is that, finally, people
are beginning to see the distinctions between the sorts of biomedical and
other experimental research IRB was set up to protect people from, and what
oral historians, folklorists, and perhaps some of us are typically engaged
in. Some info on this can be found here:
http://www.historians.org/press/2003-11-10IRB.htm

I wonder whether people at AAA or LSA are looking at this and thinking
through the implications for us, as anthropologists and linguists. Of
course, there are times when we do things that require oversight and
protection of human subjects. But I find it pretty frustrating to have to go
thru the IRB process so I can go ask old people how to say "people today
don't know how to speak Patwa" in Patwa.

Ron

------ End of Forwarded Message

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