Turtle tracks at Smathers Beach: Key West, Florida, 1993

Law, ethics and fieldwork: how are research practices changing?

In the social sciences and humanities (SSH), researchers’ methods to record,  photograph and film during fieldwork are modified in the last decades by taking into account legal and ethical issues: European and French laws, research funding policies and various calls for project more and more systematically require the signature of agreements for the use of the data produced; More and more institutions are setting up ethics committees to establish rules governing the funding they receive; Witnesses  or informants want to know and understand what will be done with their image and their voice and what has become of the old recordings; Interviewees’ communities want to be able to exploit the films or recordings from a heritage point of view; Artists increasingly take possession of archival material for their creations… The demand for multidisciplinarity has also greatly impacted research methods, and several practices are now being used in SSH disciplines as a result of two influences: the health sector, with the model of informed consent, and the revolution brought by digital technologies in the area of data management (data gathering, formats, volume, etc.).

In the analogue era, legal rules were not always known, their interpretation was limited to the question of copyright or respect for the privacy of persons recorded in interviews, and anonymization seemed to be the answer to all outstanding questions. On the contrary, the digital era has given rise to a real reflection on these issues, challenging some of the working methods on the ground. From now on, in addition to the new rules brought by GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), researchers must know how to implement a data management plan or when to inform Data Protection Authorities such as the CNIL (French National Commission of Informatics and Liberty) about methods used to process personal data. They must also take into account the following issues: how to reference witnesses and recordings, what are the rules of long-term preservation, historical exception or data destruction… Can the researcher make an informed decision while on fieldwork while being fully aware of the rights, duties and on consequences of their corpus creation, the constraints on exploitation, dissemination or transmission? What consequences could this have on the gathering, archiving and process of return to the informants?

This issue of Bulletin de l’AFAS. Sonorités will aim to include the following:

– articles reflecting on this methodological evolution or the consequences of these new practices on research results;

– examples of specific cases and implemented solutions found to address the issues their raised;

– Detailed description of cases that required radical changes in the way practitioners work.

Special Issue Editors: Véronique Ginouvès (MMSH, AMU-CNRS, USR3128), Véronique Traverso (Ifpo, ICAR, UMR5191).

Scientific committee for this special issue:
– Agnès Arp (University of Iena, Germany)

– Florence Descamps (Historian, EPHE PSL, Paris, France)

– Loubna Dimachki (Linguist, University of Libanon, Beyrouth)

– Myriam Fellous-Sigrist (King’s College London, London, United Kingdom)

– Isabelle Gras, (Library curator, SCD AMU, Aix-en-Provence, France)

– Vanessa Piccoli, Post-Doctorante (Labex ASLAN – Laboratoire ICAR – Equipe InSitu/LIS) – Projet ANR REMILAS (REfugiés, MIgrants, et leurs LAngues face aux services de Santé)

– Perla Olivia Rodríguez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

– Valentina Zingari (Independant researcher in anthropology, Sienna, Italy)

Disciplines: all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, and any other research fields where audio-recorded or filmed fieldwork interviews are used for the production of knowledge.

Important dates:

– call opened on the 3 October 2019 (in french)

– deadline for contributions: 20 January 2020

How to submit a proposal: please send a summary of 5000 characters (including spaces), and descriptive information about the author(s) (Family Name, First name, Institution, Status)

Accepted languages: French, English, Italian, Spanish

Summary send to : veronique<dot>ginouves<at>univ-amu<dot>fr & vztraverso<at>gmail<dot>com

Call in french: https://phonotheque.hypotheses.org/30861

Call in english: https://phonotheque.hypotheses.org/30914

Call in italian: https://phonotheque.hypotheses.org/30924

Convocatoria en castillano:  https://phonotheque.hypotheses.org/30970

Crédits photographiques : traces de tortues sur la plage de Smathers, Key West, Floride, 21 juillet 1993, Florida Memory, Dale M. McDonald Collection, DM0074, pas de restrictions de droits connues.


OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Véronique Ginouvès (2 novembre 2019). Law, ethics and fieldwork: how are research practices changing? Archives de la recherche & Phonothèque. Consulté le 12 février 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/svdw


2 réflexions sur « Law, ethics and fieldwork: how are research practices changing? »

Laisser un commentaire

Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas publiée. Les champs obligatoires sont indiqués avec *

Ce site utilise Akismet pour réduire les indésirables. En savoir plus sur comment les données de vos commentaires sont utilisées.