Читать книгу Doing Field Projects - John Forrest - Страница 28

At minimum, all fieldwork conducted by undergraduates (and university students in general) must be approved by a university’s Human Subjects Committee, Internal Review Board, or similar committee. DO NOT START WORK ON PROJECTS IN THIS BOOK WITHOUT INSTITUTIONAL APPROVAL. This is a hard-and-fast rule with no exceptions. If you are doing these projects for a field methods class, it is possible that the class has blanket approval for its students. My field methods course had general approval from my university on the condition that I monitor each project, and that I submit an annual report to the committee. Check with your instructor if you are using these projects for a class. If you are pursuing them alone, or as part of a larger research project, check with the head of your department, dean, or supervisor.

Having standards for the ethical use of human subjects in experimentation has long been an issue when it comes to testing drugs, inducing clinical problems for trial purposes, and the like. But by the 1960s there was an increasing awareness that using human subjects in sociology, anthropology, or experimental psychology could also potentially inflict harm, either personal or social, and safeguards needed to be put in place to minimize risk. Hence, every university has a committee devoted to assessing the potential for danger in using human subjects for research, and either approving that research, or not. At first blush you might think that interviewing people about their lives would carry few, if any, risks, however, unfortunately, that is not the case. Historically, anthropological fieldwork is littered with examples of people who have been harmed by information they have communicated to anthropologists. This point leads to the next ones.