Paper short abstract:

Considering the increasing demands made for data-sharing, this paper explores the role of the ethnographic researchers in the management of research materials. It discusses the responsibility of the researcher for maintaining research materials in diverging forms of ethnographic research.

Paper long abstract:

This paper builds on the Leiden statement on data management in anthropology (Pels 2018; Boog et al 2018), which maintains that, as research materials are always based on mutual trust and collaboration, and are co-produced in a social context, they can never be fully owned or controlled by the researcher, their interlocutors, or third parties. In this presentation, first, I clarify what the emphasis on the coproduction of knowledge means in the context of the GDPR. Second, I argue that ethnographic research oriented on, say, 'studying down', 'collaborative equality' and 'studying down' require radically different approach to research ethics; and, third, I conclude that to accommodate the diverse modes of fieldwork orientations, it is necessary to nuance the Leiden statement's emphasis on 'mutual trust'. To include research contexts where there is a very narrow, or even no, trust-basis, we still need to recognize the rights of those involved in the co-production of research materials. This implies that, rather than third parties, the principal researcher is responsible for maintaining research materials of a field study with a primary consideration of co-researchers and/or the socio-political and economic situation of the research participants.