Ethical Research for Ethnographers

Ethics are a big part of a workplace and as they should be. You want your employees and co-workers to feel comfortable while they’re working. If not, then things just become chaotic and the work flow is then hindered. Now, as an ethnographer are when ethics should always be considered or you could find yourself in legal trouble. When taking field notes of people and conducting interviews, you always want informed consent, meaning you make them aware that their actions and information will be used in a potentially published article or paper. Deceiving the subjects may lead to them feeling angry, foolish, or even traumatized and also a lawsuit… not good.

Tom Boellstorf mentions the legal risk in his book, “Ethnography and Virtual Worlds” because sometimes ethnographers get caught up in legal disputes. It’s not always that we are the defendant in the situation, but more as a witness to something that might’ve happened while field notes were being taken. Events like this are rare but it is important to be aware.

Like informed consent, we must also respect a subjects privacy. we must not reveal any information regarding the subject if they wish to remain anonymous as it could affect their life/career as well as yours. Some ways Boellstorf suggestion to get around this is to alter the subjects name; it’s easy and quick. To further your knowledge on ethical research for an ethnographer, you should read this article by Dr. Ron Iphofen.