Ethical approval for collecting linguistic data

[galey modan]

Although this research seems a good candidate for 'exempt' status if
no identifying data are collected, I think it goes too far to consider
the informants in a study like this to be research assistants or
collaborators. Generally, research assistants are paid what usually
amounts to at least minimum wage, or receive some other substantive,
tangible benefit (like course credit, being able to put it on a
resume, etc.), and collaborators participate in the design and
planning of a research project (in other words, they have influence
over what questions the research asks, how the data is collected,
etc), have a stake in the research, and have rights of authorship and
authority over how the research is disseminated, as well as receive
credit for it. It's true that the experimental model is not
well-suited to vet ethnographic research, but just because our
informants aren't "subjects" in the experimental sense, doesn't mean
that the power dynamics of ethnographic research are necessarily all
that different. I think it's important to distinguish between true
collaborative work -- in which the anthropologist may have to
compromise in terms of what's being investigated -- and work in which
the people we talk to or listen to are informants, because, no matter
how close our relationships are with them and how much they might be
willing to or even enjoy participating in the research, they don't
have an equal voice in determining the research questions and they
don't benefit in the same tangible ways as researchers do.

Galey

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 2:59 PM, Ronald Kephart <rkephart at unf.edu> wrote:
> On 10/18/08 10:44 PM, "Picus Ding" <picus_ding at YAHOO.COM.HK> wrote:
>
>> The proposed project I have in hand requires recording of word lists and
>> kinship terms, but no texts, of minority languages spoken in China. The matter
>> would be very simple if I would forgo the recording part, according to
>> regulations for research ethics of the university in Hong Kong.
>
> I am a member of our IRB here. I can say that we would probably give you an
> "exempt" status, even with the recording, because there is no reasonable
> expectation that consultants will be harmed as a result of your research.
>
> As you know, the IRB process was built on the model of protecting people
> from harmful medical/biological experimentation. There appears to be a
> movement toward realization that these concerns are not reasonable for some
> kinds of research, and "oral history" is an area that has been leading the
> way in this. Most if not nearly all of what we as linguists do is more like
> oral history than it is like biomedical research, and the people we work
> with are more like collaboraters or consultants than "subjects." This does
> not mean that you can just go off and do stuff without going thru the IRB
> process, though.
>
> When I went to Carriacou, Grenada, a couple years ago to record elderly
> people speaking the local French Creole, which is endangered, I was not
> required to obtain written consent- just oral.  I will say, though, that I
> did a lot of my data collection with paper and pencil. It was just easier to
> hang out with folks and write down anything new they happened to think of
> while we passed the time. And, I know the language well enough that this was
> feasible.
>
> Ron
>
> --
> Ronald Kephart
> Associate Professor of Anthropology
> University of North Florida
> http://www.unf.edu/~rkephart
>