Getting Permission

You are ethically obligated to let the people you are studying know what you are doing when you begin and you should seek to establish some kind of mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationship. If you are going to a site to collect data, you must represent your mission as such. This is not undercover or hidden-camera work. If you fear letting people at your site know what you are doing and why you are doing it . . . then . . . choose another site. (Translating Culture, 74)

When you enter a fieldsite and make yourself known, you must follow many courtesies to make yourself and the people you're observing feel comfortable. All places in which you are a participant-observer involve an official process for negotiating entry (FW, 140).

In order to make absolutely sure you don't violate this official process, obtain that requisite permission early.

Selecting Your Research Site

The authors of the forthcoming textbook Translating Culture: an Ethnographic Introduction to Composition (Houghton Mifflin) offer the following advice: "As a rule, we ask our students not to engage in research in which their participation can result in physical or emotional harm, or arrest. You should also make sure you select a site that is physically accessible. If you want to research a site you can't get to (locked doors, security clearances, the South Pole, etc.), you need to go a different route.

   Then there are the time constraints of researching for a class, which has predetermined beginning and end dates, and, of course, rigid time frames for when grades are due. If the site that has your heart pounding is not accessible for repeated visits over the course of a semester or quarter, you will need to choose a different site. (73-74).

 

Before settling on your research site, you should ask yourself the following questions (from Translating Culture, 90):

 

1. Is your site very interesting to you and/or connected to you in some important way? In what ways?

2. How does your site function as a "community"?

3. Do you have physical access to the site and will you be able to make multiple research visits during the time constraints of this course and of your life [this term]?

4. Do you have cultural access to this site? In other words, will you be allowed to participate and observe "meaningful" interaction between community members?

5. Do you feel comfortable with the ethical obligations of the research process?

6. Will you be be to inform the community that you are collecting data for an ethnographic research process? [remember: you must!]

7. Are you willing to share your representation of the community with its members? Can you see some means of establishing reciprocity--benefit of your research for you personally and for the community?

8. Do you think your site and your writing will be of interest to others? Why?

"The Ethics of Selecting a Research Site"  (from Translating Culture, 90-91)

The most important question one has to ask when selecting a research site is: Why do you want to conduct research in this place? . . . . Problems arise when students give answers like:

• I want to research that place because I want to know what "those people" do.

• I am angry with my family and I want to get them to see how stupid they are.

• Prostitution/stripping/drugs have never been for me, but I find the whole culture fascinating.

• I know that there is discrimination in my workplace and I want to prove it.

• I think that if I just have the chance to talk with these folks, they'll understand that their lifestyle isn't the bet choice.

. . . [Contrary to what these answers might tell us about the researcher and her motivations, it is unethical for a researcher to have as her goal to] change a scene or see themselves as being educated through the process. It is easy to understand why your goal cannot be changing folks, altering the situation principally because you think it will be better your way. [When you do that,] you're using your own values and morals to guide your research rather than considering the values and morals of the community as reasonable and valid. Big mistake.

   It is also a mistake to view your ethnographic research as a way for you to educate yourself about another location or culture, one that you have no connection with whatsoever. It is a Western tendency to believe that the world is out there for our own benefit, that it is, somehow, our right to know about anything we want to know about, to become educated on any aspect of life we so choose to know something about. While it may be that we do have the privilege and ability to know many things, that we have great access to information, understand that your right to know can sometimes be in conflict with another person's right to privacy. That doesn't mean you can't research for knowledge, or that this isn't part of what will happen--you will learn more about any cultural site you choose. The point is the approach you take from the beginning. Is this site being chosen as a space you seek to enter and dominate through your investigation, or is it something you honor as it is, coming to work the best you can to . . . observe what happens as a matter of course, rather than interfering in the values and beliefs that control the realities here?

Obtaining the Requisite Permission

Once you have selected your research site and feel pretty confident that (1) you will be safe and welcome in conducting this particular research project in this particular community, (2) you have enough access to this research site to be able to visit on multiple occasions, (3) the site or community will come together in the time frame required for this course, (4) and you are conducting research on this site for reasons that are ethical and just (reasons that respect the community as it is and ensure you have no wish to violate any privacies or make any changes to the community), you are ready to obtain the requisite permissions.

 

In some cases, these permissions may be verbal. In all cases, however, Sustein and Chiseri-Strater suggest that you always (1) Explain your project clearly to the people you will study, and obtain the requisite permission [written or verbal] from those in charge; (2) let your informants understand what part of the study you'll share with them." (141).

 

The test as to whether or not you will require written permission: Ask.  Ask your instructor. Ask your informants and those in charge of the site you are researching. Ask yourself. In Translating Culture, the authors suggest that you will absolutely need to get specific written permission if

• "You want to use people's real names in your work and won't automatically use pseudonyms [we strongly suggest that you always use pseudonyms rather than real names]. 

• You would like to conduct in-depth interviews with a few people.

• You have any hopes of or desires to publish this work.

• You know that the action and conversation at your site is politically charged and involves controversial issues."

 

A sample permission form available in FieldWorking  (page 142).

 

A second sample comes from Translating Culture ("Ethnographer's Toolkit, Sample Permission Forms," page 91):

 

[Name of Researcher Contact information for Researcher]   I understand that I am being interviewed and recorded for an ethnographic research project conducted by ________ (name of student researcher) for ________ (class) at ___________ (school) taught by ______ (name of teacher). I agree to let him/her use the interview to write a paper for the class. It will not be used for any other purpose. I have been informed that if I become uncomfortable at any time during the interview, I do not have to answer questions or I can ask to have the tape or video recorder (if used) turned off. I am aware that I can request that a pseudonym be used. I understand that by signing this form, I give permission for the interview to be used for the purposes stated above.   Do you agree to participate in the interview          YES      NO Can the interview be recorded?                           YES      NO Should a pseudonym be used?                             YES     NO Signed: _______________________________________________________   Date: ___________________

If you are observing a formal site (in the workplace, in a school, at a private business, in a government office, etc), there is likely to be a formal process for obtaining permission. Ask the people in charge about the processes and procedures. The worst thing would be that you get into your project and then learn that you must abandon it because you have not received the required permissions.   Don't put yourself in this position! Get written permission!