Ethnographic research comes with a unique set of ethical challenges. As participant observers ethnographers are deeply embedded among the people they work with, and immersed in their daily lives. Lines between researcher, participant and collaborator regularly blur. Ethnographer’s raw data is often closely entwined with people’s daily lives. Many of the ethics, data management and informed consent strategies employed by other qualitative researchers are not easily applied to ethnographic research. This course allows students to reflect on the ethical challenges of ethnographic research in general, and their individual projects in particular. Structured along the criteria of the WUR REF ethics review, the course further provides students with the necessary tools to prepare for such review including design of relevant informed consent procedures.

Learning outcomes

After successful completion participants are expected to be able to:

• Demonstrate the ethical challenges involved in their respective ethnographic research project
• Defend their approach to ethnographic research from an ethical vantage point
• Assemble all the components, including informed consent procedures, for the WUR ethics review process

Activities:

Course activities includes short interactive lectures, open discussions, peer-review of ethics forms as well as individual work.

The 1ECTS version of the course takes place over day 1 and 2 with a focus on ethnographic ethics.

The 1.5 ECTS version extends the course by one day and allows students to prepare a guided and peer-reviewed draft of the REF ethics review form.

Preparation:

• WUR-REC - Intranet WUR, especially the ‘REC Presentation Ethics Review.pptx’, the Abv Ethical Guidelines and the Nethics () Ethical Code
• ·(for Day 1): Lie, R., & Witteveen, L. (2017). Visual informed consent: informed consent without forms.International Journal of Social Research Methodology 20(1): 63-75.
• ·(for Day 2): de Koning, M., Meyer, B., Moors, A., & Pels, P. (2019). Guidelines for anthropological research: Data management, ethics, and integrity.,(2), 170-174.

Day 1, 9 December:

9:00-10:15: Interactive Introductory Lecture: Placing ethnography & ethics reviews in context: Why and how to account for ethics in ethnographic research, also institutionally? What challenges does the ethnographer face, in the field and when preparing an ethics review? Case study: the co-lecturers shared ethnographic research and its ethical dynamics, including reviews

10:15-10:30: Coffee break

10:30-11:30: Students briefly introduce their respective ethnographic research topics and three key anticipated ethical challenges (interactive, including both student presentations and open discussion) as foundation for engaged discussions in subsequent sessions

11:30-12:15: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions): REF indicators: 2. Participants; 3. Collaborators: Who are participants in ethnographic research? How do you account for vulnerability in ethnographic research? What is the difference between participants and collaborators in ethnography?

12:15-13:15: Lunch

13:15-14:45: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions): REF indicator 4. Informed Consent: What is informed consent in the context of ethnographic research? What are the challenges? What responses are there?

--- End of Formal Programme ---

Rest of Day 1: Independent Study (only for students completing the 1.5ECTS version of the course): students complete a 1^st draft of parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the ‘application form ethics review’ and ‘informed consent template ethics review’.

Day 2, 10 December:

9:00-9:30: Opening round/reflections from day 1 and transition to day 2

9:30-11:00: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions): REF indicator 6. Risks, negative impacts: What are risks of ethnographic researcher, for participants, collaborators and researchers? How to mitigate risks? How to determine which risks are worth taking, and which risks are not, and why?

11:00-11:15: Coffee break

11:15-12:00: Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions) Part I: REF indicator 5. Privacy and personal data: What is ‘data’ in ethnographic research and what does ethical data management look like? How can we think of ethnographic data across epistemologies and ontologies?

12:00-13:00: Lunch

13:00-14:00 Interactive session (mini-lectures + discussions) Part II: REF indicator 5. Privacy and personal data: What does ‘fair’ data management entail across diverse contexts? What is the difference between raw and processed data?

14:00-15:00: Conclusions (mini-lectures & open discussions): Ethics throughout ethnographic research, from conception to ethics review to field research, write up and dissemination – thinking longitudinally

--- End of Formal Programme ---

Rest of Day 2: Independent Study (only for students completing the 1.5ECTS version of the course): students complete a 1^st draft of parts 5 and 6 of the ‘application form ethics review’

Day 3, 12 December:

9:00-10:30: Independent Study: students peer-review two of their colleagues’ drafts of the ‘application form ethics review’ and ‘informed consent template ethics review’

--- Start of Formal Programme ---

10:30-12:00: Open discussion of completed and peer-reviewed 1^st drafts of parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the ‘application form ethics review’ and ‘informed consent template ethics review’ - What problems arose? How to address these problems?

12:00-13:00: Lunch

13:00-14:30: Open discussion of completed and peer-reviewed 1^st drafts of parts 5 and 6 of the ‘application form ethics review’ - What problems arose? How to address these problems?

14:30-15:30: Conclusions: Final reflections on the REF review process

Target group and min/max number of participants

3-15 participants

Assumed prior knowledge

Understanding of ethnographic research design (e.g. completion of the proposed new ‘Advanced Ethnography’ WASS PhD course) and ideally an already (partially) developed ethnographic research proposal.

Assessment

1 ECTS version:

• Individual presentation on ethics and individual PhD student projects (pass/fail)
• Active participation during the sessions (pass/fail)

Extra 0.5 ECTS:

• Completion of a 1st full draft of the 'application form ethics review' and 'informed consent template ethics review' (pass/fall)
• Peer-review of two colleague's drafts for the 'application form ethics review' and 'informed consent template ethics review' (pass/fall)

Course fees

Cancellation conditions

Participants can cancel their registration free of charge 1 month before the course starts. A cancellation fee of 100% applies if a participant cancels his/her registration less than 1 month prior to the start of the course.

The organisers have the right to cancel the course no later than one month before the planned course start date in the case that the number of registrations does not reach the minimum.

The participants will be notified of any changes at their e-mail addresses.