Dealing with Ethnographic Fieldnotes in the Era of Open Access Data Sharing Policy
Author(s):
Sirpa Lappalainen (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2016
Network:
19. Ethnography
Format:
Paper

Session Information

19 SES 10, Turning Points and New Debates for Ethnography

Paper Session

Time:
2016-08-25
15:30-17:00
Room:
NM-J102
Chair:
Dennis Beach

Contribution

The aim of this presentation is to reflect on impacts of ‘Open access’ policy to the process of knowledge production in the context of qualitative and especially ethnographic research. Open acces ideology became prominent in 1990s (Mauthner & Parry 2013). However, in the beginning of the open access movement the focus was  on promoting open access of publications not the data. The crucial milestone, when the data was mentioned was the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in 2003, where it was stated that  ’Open access contributions include original scientific research results, raw data and metadata, source materials, digital representations of pictorial and graphical materials and scholarly multimedia material’ (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 2003). The definition of the Open Access contributions stated in Berlin Declaration is broad, covering in practice all material that can be imagined to use as a data. Soon after the Berlin Declaration in 2004, OECD launched the Declaration on Access to Research Data from the Public Funding and in 2007 Principles and Quidelines for Access of Research Data from Public funding (OECD 2004; 2007). What have been followed are several quidelines and recommendations in European as well as national levels (e.g. European Research Council 2007; Europen Commission 2013; Academy of Finland 2014). Nowadays, when applying funding, researchers are strongly encouraged to share their data with as few restrictions as possible. Still, the impacts of open data policy on the knowledge production are rarely discussed.

 

However, Natasha Susan Mauthner and Odette Parry have participated in debate on open access policy from methodological point of view, arguing that data are seen as decontextualized bounded objects that carry inherent meanings (Mauthner and Parry 2013, 57). Thus far the point is that data are disconnected from the condition of its production and it is understood independent from producers. This is exactly opposite how ethnographers tend to understand their data generation approach. Data-generation is understood as a research phase, when the investigator participates in everyday life of particular community, institutional context(s) or among the group of people in order to produce analysis and interpretation (e.g. Delamont 2008). The typical ethnographic data include, field notes based participant observation, interviews and different kind of documents produced in the investigated institution or community. However, the data generated through participation (fieldnotes) are the core, which makes the research ethnographic. In that sense fieldnotes can be said to form the ‘primary source of scientific research’ (OECD 2007, 13). On the other hand writing fieldnotes is a highly affective and embodied approach, also crucial for researchers in terms of their professional identification (Jackson 1990, 33). 

Method

Therefore the aim of this paper is to reflect on how an agreement to provide ethnographic data publicly available in an archive impacts on the process of knowledge production in ethnographic fieldwork. It is based on experiences in two ethnographic research projects. The first one is my Phd project, in which I generated a data in preschool context. This is the data generated before the times of ‘open data sharing ideology’. The second one is my post doc. project, where the data was generated in the vocational upper secondary education of Health Care and Social Services. The data has been generated after OECD had given a Declaration on Access to Research Data from the Public Funding in 2004. This data is archived in Finnish Social Science Data Archive (ID FSD2575). I read the field notes generated in these two projects side-by-side asking first how they are constructed; for example how episodes in the field have been framed and contextualised. Second, I explore what has been written and how participants and their actions have been described. Third, I paid attention on silences -- what has been left out. In addition to fieldnotes this third phase of analyses is based on autoethnographic reflections on fieldwork, framed by the awareness of archiving. For the closer analysis, I have chosen two kinds of fieldnotes. First, I look at notes where the first encounters with participants are described. Second I analyses notes, where something affective has been described. I have chosen these parts from my field notes because I find them describing the moments, where the ethnographer is maybe the most aware about potential ‘anyone’, who might read her/his original data.

Expected Outcomes

The analysis shows that giving up the control on my data has not influenced on data generation as such. However, it is not unproblematic either. Fieldnotes might include descriptions of frustration, disappointments and confusions – affects, which often lead to new tracks, relevant in terms of analysis and interpretation but which researcher might be unwilling to share for wider audience. Or quickly written notes might include descriptions participants or actions, which work as a relevant data for a researcher, who has embodied experience from the field, but do not make sense for someone without the knowledge on the context. Detailed description as such might afterwards make researcher feel that she/he has invaded people’s privacy even though they do not include issues considered especially sensitive. During the research process the researcher has an opportunity to ‘think twice’ what she shows audience; she/he continuously seek the most sensitive possible ways to produce representations and affective, potentially sensitive descriptions would not necessarily ever end up to the final research reports as they are, but as a ‘raw’ data they continue their life in archive publicly available. After two ethnographic projects I would like to argue that the opportunity to think twice is substantial for the knowledge production in ethnographic approach. Emerson, Fretz and Shaw (1995/2011, 9) states that ‘ fieldnotes are products of active processes of interpretation and sense-making’. Writing fieldnotes is not a mechanical transcribing but an intellectual and highly emotional approach. Therefore I would like to argue that event though argumentation in ethnographic research might primarily be based on fieldnotes, they come closer to the objects, which in OECD data sharing policy statements are called ‘laboratory notebooks’ and ‘preliminary analysis’. Therefore, open data sharing policy should not cover them.

References

Delamont, S. (2008) Ethnography and participant observation. In Seale, C. Gobo, G., Gubrium, F. & Silverman, D. Qualitative research practice. London: SAGE. Emerson, R. & Fretz, R. I. & shaw, L. L. (1995/2011) Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Second Edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Jackson, J. E. (1990) “I am a fieldnote”: Fieldnotes as a symbol of professional identity. In Sanjek, R. (ed.) Fieldnotes. The making of antropology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 3-33. Mauthner, N. & Parry, O (2013) Open Access Digital Data Sharing: Principles, Policies and Practices, Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy, 27:1, 47-67, DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2012.760663 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (2003) Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in 2003, http://openaccess.mpg.de/67605/berlin_declaration_engl.pdf [downloaded 11th June 2015] ERC Scientific Council guidelines for Open Access (ERC 2007) http://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/index.cfm?pg=policy&lib=science Guidelines for open access to Scientific publications and Research Data in Horizon 2020 http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-pilot-guide_en.pdf (European Commission 2013)

Author Information

Sirpa Lappalainen (presenting / submitting)
University of Helsinki
Institute of Behavioural Sciences
University of Helsinki

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