Paper short abstract:

In this presentation, we wish to contribute to the debate concerning ethical rules for ethnographic archives, including embargoes, researchers’ independent decisions, and suggestions for the near future.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropology seats in a long story considering the makings of ethnography. Throughout the western world, anthropology grew up with works being done among interlocutors (former “informants”) with whom anthropologists develop intersubjective relations, based in what is called mutuality (Pina-Cabral 2013). In Portugal, ethnographers got used to work with this referential attitude, along with international ethical guidelines (the guidelines from the Association of Social Anthropologists being the most used), but without informed consents signed by people who collaborate in anthropological researches.

Recently, two major changes happened. On the one hand, international projects’ guidelines require that researchers draw ethical frameworks for their projects, and on the other hand, new legislation considering personal data sets new ways of looking at one’s ethnographic archives. Moreover, despite these changes, the debate in Portugal considering ethnographic archives is still immature (Almeida & Cachado 2019a). From another point of view, Portuguese anthropology already dealt in the past with controversial data (Almeida & Cachado 2019b; Leal 2008; Almeida 2014; West 2006). Presently, how can researchers deal with recent debates, norms, and legislation? What kind of education should new anthropologists have to deal with archives from their old colleagues and to produce their own archives?

In this presentation, we wish to contribute to the debate concerning ethical rules for ethnographic archives, including embargoes, researchers’ independent decisions, and suggestions for the near future.