Well, I seem to have fallen off the blogging map for a while there, for which I am sorry. I had disappeared into writing farr, as I had a deadline for a completed chapter in November, and then got eaten by the (Australian) summer holidays. But I have survived my first Christmas away from home, and I now have two completed (ish) chapters for my diss, which is always a nice feeling. But now, no more slacking, gotta get back into it.
I'm hoping to post more in the upcoming weeks, but two quick things now:
I requested and received permission to change how I get consent to use vids in my research. Basically, many people verbally agreed to allow me to include a vid they had made, but we all have busy lives and lots of things on our plates, and it was extremely difficult to get signed copies of the consent forms returned. If you've already given me written consent to include a vid, that's still fine. However, from now on I am able to receive verbal consent (either over the phone or via email) to include vids, rather than needing a signature. Hopefully this will make things much smoother from here on in.
The second (and infinitely more exciting) thing is this:
Boppy and I in the planning stages to host some sort of vidding convention in Australia, broadly conceived. This means we are hoping to include more than just (mostly) Livejournal-based live-action vidding - AMVs, mashups, trailers, machinima, and any other sort of remix/appropriated video are all welcome, in addition to vids.
In addition, I have been in talks with one of the research groups here at the University of Wollongong (specifically, the inter-faculty Innovations in Cultural Research group) to pair up a fan-run convention with an academic conference on the topic. I have several colleagues here who study different types of appropriated, grassroots media (DJ culture, machinima, yaoi/boy's love fandom, that sort of thing), and we are hoping have a call for papers on "remix", broadly conceived, for this event. We're also hoping to make it a little different from other academic conferences: creators will be invited to speak and showcase their work, in addition to academics, and digital media students from the uni's Faculty of Creative Arts will also create an exhibition on the theme of "remix".
Tentatively scheduled for the end of 2010 (Nov-Dec), I think of it going something like this:
Thursday & Friday: Academic conference at the University of Wollongong
Saturday & Sunday: Fan-run convention (possibly also in Wollongong?)
Having the events next to each other in this way will allow the fans and academics to mingle and attend each other's events if they like.
Of course, this is all still in the very rough planning stages. Everything is subject to change, and we're looking for feedback on pretty much everything - planning, hosting, programming, tech, premieres, all of that!
If you are interested in attending either event, pretty please let me or Boppy know!
More posts on this upcoming in the near future, so stay tuned.
Showing posts with label consent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consent. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2010
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Writing continues, and how I use quotes
I may not be dead, but I have fallen into a pit of writing, conferences, and research work here at uni. Probably about time, though, lol.
For anyone who was curious, I've completed my second chapter (barring some minor edits). This chapter is about my methodologies - what types of data collection methods I've used and what - and a general introduction to the vidding community online - about how many people, some demographics, and that sort of thing. I also address issues like privacy, consent, confidentiality, and things like that.
I've now moved on to third chapter, which I've tentatively titled "The Practice of Vidding". It is sort of a background information chapter for my readers who may not be familiar with vidding, and covers the 30-odd year history from slides to digital, and then gives a summary of how current digital vids are made (as I've mentioned before, I am focusing on contemporary, digital vidding for my dissertation).
I already have, and probably will continue to, be sending out some emails in the near future to various vidders I've met or interviewed, and also some I haven't, asking for permission to quote sources outside the range of personal interviews or focus groups (which is covered by the consent form you would have signed). This may include things like individual's Livejournal posts, or comments in someone else's LJ. I will be quoting from general posts to communities without tacit permission, because a larger/more public audience is assumed for these. However, I will request permission to quote by email for any comments in any LJ, and personal LJs. And I will ask permission for each quote, and not just assume a blanket permission to take words wherever I please (unless the vidder indicates this is okay).
I am planning to include a DVD of several vids along with my dissertation for the examiners / my supervisors. I am going to be sending out consent forms which need to be signed by the vidder in order to include it here. You can check out the consent form here if you are curious: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfn5rwh3_114cbkv3pfd. It usually comes with the participant information sheet, which looks like this:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfn5rwh3_7gdktk2d6
Of course, if you receive a request to quote or for vid use, you can always refuse me with no hard feelings. I'm not here to expose anyone or disrupt anything.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to run a final focus group as I may have desired. I have some tight deadlines coming up and really need to get on those. My apologies to everyone who volunteered! However, if there is anyone out there who would like to read portions of my thesis as it is written, please let me know. I am looking for some vidder/vid-watcher feedback. :-)
For anyone who was curious, I've completed my second chapter (barring some minor edits). This chapter is about my methodologies - what types of data collection methods I've used and what - and a general introduction to the vidding community online - about how many people, some demographics, and that sort of thing. I also address issues like privacy, consent, confidentiality, and things like that.
I've now moved on to third chapter, which I've tentatively titled "The Practice of Vidding". It is sort of a background information chapter for my readers who may not be familiar with vidding, and covers the 30-odd year history from slides to digital, and then gives a summary of how current digital vids are made (as I've mentioned before, I am focusing on contemporary, digital vidding for my dissertation).
I already have, and probably will continue to, be sending out some emails in the near future to various vidders I've met or interviewed, and also some I haven't, asking for permission to quote sources outside the range of personal interviews or focus groups (which is covered by the consent form you would have signed). This may include things like individual's Livejournal posts, or comments in someone else's LJ. I will be quoting from general posts to communities without tacit permission, because a larger/more public audience is assumed for these. However, I will request permission to quote by email for any comments in any LJ, and personal LJs. And I will ask permission for each quote, and not just assume a blanket permission to take words wherever I please (unless the vidder indicates this is okay).
I am planning to include a DVD of several vids along with my dissertation for the examiners / my supervisors. I am going to be sending out consent forms which need to be signed by the vidder in order to include it here. You can check out the consent form here if you are curious: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfn5rwh3_114cbkv3pfd. It usually comes with the participant information sheet, which looks like this:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfn5rwh3_7gdktk2d6
Of course, if you receive a request to quote or for vid use, you can always refuse me with no hard feelings. I'm not here to expose anyone or disrupt anything.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to run a final focus group as I may have desired. I have some tight deadlines coming up and really need to get on those. My apologies to everyone who volunteered! However, if there is anyone out there who would like to read portions of my thesis as it is written, please let me know. I am looking for some vidder/vid-watcher feedback. :-)
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Eroticism, Sex, and Consent in the Field
I'm currently reading the fascinating collection "Taboo: Sex, Identity, and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork", edited by Don Kulick and Margaret Willson (London & New York: Routledge, 1995). Despite the fact that I only did anthropology for my undergraduate degree, I find the methodological, ethical, and subjective issues of this particular field endlessly interesting (nerd that I am). The collection of essays deals with issues of eroticism, sex, and sexuality in fieldwork, a topic that most fieldworkers are silent on. There is an unspoken rule that sex while in the field is unethical, and it is assumed that all anthropologists are somehow celibate while performing their fieldwork. I find this book very confronting in that it acknowledges the possibilities, risks, and even benefits of sexual desire for one's fieldwork. Most of all, the honesty and candid accounts of various ethnographers' experiences is touching and brings up a lot of issues that I think should be addressed in more anthropology training in universities.
Consider this passage from Ralph Bolton's chapter, speaking as a gay man who frequently had sex with his participants while researching the gay community and the AIDS epidemic in Brussels:
"I cannot imagine doing fieldwork without sex, perhaps from a feeling that life is too short and one must enjoy it while one can. We don't get younger. Perhaps it's because I came out late and am 'catching up'. In truth, it's probably because I enjoy sex too much to remain voluntarily abstinent. It is most definitely not a sacrifice I would make for my profession. But the question of identity is implicated as well. In the hierarchy of components of my personal identity, gayness ranks higher than ethnicity, nationality, and profession. And that aspect of my being is expressed and celebrated through sex." (pg. 149)
This passage just floored me. What a brave statement to make, first of all. I commend Bolton for so openly stating such things. The role of the body, of emotion, of sex, and indeed of love is one that hardly ever enters ethnographic discourse, and certainly not in such frank terms. The scandal of Malinowski revealing his sexual desires in the field in his "Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term" shocked and scandalized the anthropological discipline. Despite all the recent hubbub on self-reflexivity and auto-ethnography, the silence remains.
And as someone who always struggles with issues of consent and ethics (even though my research has never been with high-risk communities), I find this also deeply unsettling. Obviously Bolton's partners were all consenting adults, and likely also educated Westerners, but obtaining data through pillow talk seems questionable.
Later in the chapter, Bolton details the ethical concerns in performing this type of research. Regarding consent, he explains that he did not obtain signed consent from any participants (partially out of concern for their privacy), and did not hide that he was researching when asked. But would these men have consented to sex if they knew in advance that Bolton was studying them? Would it have affected their decision in some way?
Or am I placing my own subjectivity onto this? Bolton seems unworried for the consequences, and I am neither gay nor male, and certainly cannot claim knowledge of the role of sex in the gay male community. Bolton states that he engaged in sex for personal and not professional reasons, but if he stood to gain professionally from the encounters I believe he should have obtained consent in advance. "...The purpose of informed consent is to prevent hard to the individual, or if harm could occur, then to obtain permission and acceptance of that risk by those who would incur it. In my judgment, no risk was involved in the Belgian fieldwork." (155) I find this statement problematic for many reasons: if someone slept with me and then started quizzing me as an anthropologist, I would feel at risk. I wonder how Bolton's participants felt. I agree with Marshall's review of his work, when she called it "passive deception", even though Bolton himself does not.
Bolton also points to the necessity of participating in sex in order to fully be a member of the gay community, and of course participant observation is the cornerstone of anthropological methodology. You learn by doing. My own participants have insisted that I make a vid myself in order to fully understand their practices, to be "in" I need to become a vidder myself. Could Bolton have achieved his research goals while abstaining? I doubt it.
I can just imagine the reaction from the UOW ethics committee if I even thought about suggested a project like this!
Consider this passage from Ralph Bolton's chapter, speaking as a gay man who frequently had sex with his participants while researching the gay community and the AIDS epidemic in Brussels:
"I cannot imagine doing fieldwork without sex, perhaps from a feeling that life is too short and one must enjoy it while one can. We don't get younger. Perhaps it's because I came out late and am 'catching up'. In truth, it's probably because I enjoy sex too much to remain voluntarily abstinent. It is most definitely not a sacrifice I would make for my profession. But the question of identity is implicated as well. In the hierarchy of components of my personal identity, gayness ranks higher than ethnicity, nationality, and profession. And that aspect of my being is expressed and celebrated through sex." (pg. 149)
This passage just floored me. What a brave statement to make, first of all. I commend Bolton for so openly stating such things. The role of the body, of emotion, of sex, and indeed of love is one that hardly ever enters ethnographic discourse, and certainly not in such frank terms. The scandal of Malinowski revealing his sexual desires in the field in his "Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term" shocked and scandalized the anthropological discipline. Despite all the recent hubbub on self-reflexivity and auto-ethnography, the silence remains.
And as someone who always struggles with issues of consent and ethics (even though my research has never been with high-risk communities), I find this also deeply unsettling. Obviously Bolton's partners were all consenting adults, and likely also educated Westerners, but obtaining data through pillow talk seems questionable.
Later in the chapter, Bolton details the ethical concerns in performing this type of research. Regarding consent, he explains that he did not obtain signed consent from any participants (partially out of concern for their privacy), and did not hide that he was researching when asked. But would these men have consented to sex if they knew in advance that Bolton was studying them? Would it have affected their decision in some way?
Or am I placing my own subjectivity onto this? Bolton seems unworried for the consequences, and I am neither gay nor male, and certainly cannot claim knowledge of the role of sex in the gay male community. Bolton states that he engaged in sex for personal and not professional reasons, but if he stood to gain professionally from the encounters I believe he should have obtained consent in advance. "...The purpose of informed consent is to prevent hard to the individual, or if harm could occur, then to obtain permission and acceptance of that risk by those who would incur it. In my judgment, no risk was involved in the Belgian fieldwork." (155) I find this statement problematic for many reasons: if someone slept with me and then started quizzing me as an anthropologist, I would feel at risk. I wonder how Bolton's participants felt. I agree with Marshall's review of his work, when she called it "passive deception", even though Bolton himself does not.
Bolton also points to the necessity of participating in sex in order to fully be a member of the gay community, and of course participant observation is the cornerstone of anthropological methodology. You learn by doing. My own participants have insisted that I make a vid myself in order to fully understand their practices, to be "in" I need to become a vidder myself. Could Bolton have achieved his research goals while abstaining? I doubt it.
I can just imagine the reaction from the UOW ethics committee if I even thought about suggested a project like this!
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