Towards an Ethic of Reciprocity: The Messy Business of Co-creating Research with Voices from the Archive

Abstract

Do contemporary practices of attribution go far enough in acknowledging the contribution that others make to our work, particularly when they speak from the archive? The autobiographical fiction Faces in the Water (1961) from acclaimed author Janet Frame (1924-2004) draws on her experiences of residing in various New Zealand mental hospitals between 1945 and 1953. It is a rare and comprehensive account of the patient experience of these institutions that provided a critical lens for my doctoral research. Perhaps more importantly, through this text Frame taught me how difficult histories should be written, about the ambiguities we must accept and the value adjustments to be made in order to make sense of confounding inhumanity. Nowhere within my dissertation is the depth of this contribution acknowledged; a position developed out of respect for her family’s active opposition to the ‘patronising’ and ‘pathologising discourse’ that continues to haunt contemporary receptions of Frame’s work. Within this paper I employ autoethnography to make explicit the process of working through a question that haunted me well beyond the completion of my doctoral research: whether contemporary practices of citation and acknowledgement are sufficient to value research contributions from beyond the grave. I will examine whether Frame’s contribution is commensurate with contemporary qualifications for co-authorship and the burdens of academic practice that act to suppress these conversations.

Mapping Healthcare Spaces: A Systematic Scoping Review of Spatial and Behavioral Observation Methods

“…The well-being of participants is especially important; patients are often vulnerable and unwell, visitors may be distressed, and staff are engaged in critical, time-sensitive activities. To ensure ethical conduct, researchers must ask consent before conducting observations and cease observation if participants withdraw their consent; “[privileging] participants’ feelings, experiences, and needs over data and information gathering” (McLaughlan, 2018; Wolgemuth & Donohue, 2006, p. 1033). Practices such as covert observation or observation without consent may be especially ethically problematic in private spaces such as patient’s bedrooms or semi-private spaces where personal patient information may be overheard, such as ward corridors.…”

On the fate of social networking sites of deceased academics in the Covid-19 era and beyond

“…This age of Covid-19 might be the most pertinent time to reflect on these issues and to debate guidelines and infrastructures that can safeguard the security and accuracy of deceased academics’ SNSs, which go hand-in-hand with database, information and literature security ( Soomro et al., 2016 ). Among the issues that require urgent attention is the ethical perspective of the permission needed to list deceased authors, especially when authorship criteria, such as approval and accountability, must be considered ( McLaughlan, 2018 ; Helgesson et al., 2019 ).…”