I have documented permissions using an IRB-approved form, although I am thinking through how that permission process might have to be modified to accommodate research participants with various levels of written literacy.Release form: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11puy13aKLRLFx-fm0HcUwZDOnAOQMf3a/view?usp=sharing (also translated into Spanish)
Currently, the archive is public to view. However, there are some questions that need to be resolved around sharing photographs or videos of individuals who cannot consent to have their faces visible/public (for example, deceased individuals or individuals who appear in the background of photos/videos of public events who cannot be identified and/or it would not be possible to gain individual permissions as there are too many).
At the moment, the archive doesn’t support collaboration as I’m still collecting artifacts for upload. Thus far, my research activities have been limited by the COVID-19 pandemic and I have not been conducting research in person; I do plan, however, on traveling to my fieldsites late this summer. I think that will enable me to take many original photos and videos and to collect more artifacts from research participants (many of whom have archives in their Urequio homes, including individuals who live in Southern California).
As an undergraduate student, I did some short term ethnographic research (over the course of about a month) in the form of interviews and participant observation. As a PhD student, I conducted preliminary ethnographic research in both Urequio and in Southern California before beginning my digital fieldwork in July 2021 which is currently ongoing.
Most of my experience archiving has come from my dissertation project and gathering materials for the Urequio Infrastructure Archive. However, in answering this question I noticed that I’ve created informal archives for other aspects of my life and creative practices - such as creating private blogs for collecting found artifacts for writing, sewing, knitting, etc.
One of the experiences that has stayed with me is coming across an example of a grant application where in the “data sharing and ethics” section the author described not sharing their data as a result of (something along the lines of) norms/standard practices in anthropology.
One of the things that I’ve thought over and questioned through my own research process is the discipline’s tendency towards not sharing any research data (speaking in the context of situations with the research participants have given permissions to the researcher to share data more widely and publically than academic publications). I’m curious in how that as a default practice developed in anthropology.
A quick overview of some archiving and exhibition projects related to Formosa Plastics:
