Sharing Data and Results in Ethnographic Research: Why This Should Not Be an Ethical Imperative

Abstract

RESEARCHERS RECENTLY HAVE argued that offering to share research results with study participants should be an "ethical imperative." This article considers that suggestion in light of the practice of ethnographic, particularly anthropological, research. Sharing results is discussed in relation to several issues, e.g., whether it occurs during or after completion of a project, whether the research is long-term, the complexities involved in depositing field materials in archives, the changing politics of ethnographic research, research not concerned with communities, situations in which participants and the anthropologist may be in danger, and changing styles of ethnographic research. I argue that, ideally, sharing should be a regular component of ethnographic research but should not be an ethical requirement. Given the complexity, variety and changing political contexts of ethnographic research, implementing such a requirement would often be practically impossible and sometimes would be inadvisable. I recommend instead that research ethics boards educate themselves about the nature of ethnographic research. Further, they should approach decision making on the issue of data or results sharing on a case-by-case basis. For researchers, I recommend that discussion of data and result sharing should become part of the education of all ethnographers and that discussion of the issue should be fostered.

HIV testing experiences of Aboriginal youth in Canada: service implications

“…The participatory process allowed the research partners (including Aboriginal and nonAboriginal researchers) to jointly make research decisions and share results with community. While there is an emerging literature on the challenges of sharing results (e.g., Cooper, 2007Cooper, , 2008, in this study we faced no difficulties in presenting results or other aspects of the research process. Ethics approval was obtained from all participating institutions.…”

What Drives Academic Data Sharing?

“…Axelsson and Schroeder [63] describe the maxim to act upon public trust as an important precondition for database research. Regarding data sensitivity, Cooper [89] emphasizes the need to consider if the data being shared could harm people. Similarly, Enke et al [21] point to the possibility that some data could be used to harm environmentally sensitive areas.…”

“…Pearce and Smith [27] on the other hand state that getting rid of identifiers is often not enough and pleads for restricted access. Many authors point to the necessity of contractual consent between data collector and study participant regarding the terms of use of personal data [25,47,84,86,89,[92][93][94][95][96]. While privacy issues apply to individual-related data, issues of ownership and rights of use concern all kinds of data.…”

“…Many other authors in our sample examine the issue of competitive misuse [5,22,23,46,48,[102][103][104]. Another issue regarding the recipient's use of data concerns a possible flawed interpretation (e.g., [21,59,89,105,106]). Perrino et al [59], regarding a dataset from psychological studies, state: "The correct interpretation of data has been another concern of investigators.…”

“…A common rationale within the surveyed literature is that restricted access, for example through a registration system, would contribute to data security and counter the perceived loss of control ( [47,87,89,94,108]). Some authors even emphasize the necessity to edit the data after it has been stored [21].…”