Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the challenges and difficulties of making ethnographic data public. Inspired by affective scholarship, it takes into analytic account the role of affects and emotions in ethnographic research.

Paper long abstract:

Researchers are increasingly expected to make their research data findable, accessible, understandable, and reusable. However, data sharing within contemporary European Ethnology is still uncommon (Imeri 2017), and sharing ethnographic data has particular challenges. Previous research has focused on infrastructural, ethical, and policy issues surrounding the sharing of qualitative and ethnographic data. Inspired by our work at the CRC Affective Societies, we propose affects and emotions as a core analytical means for gaining a deeper understanding of ethnographic knowledge production (Stodulka, Dinkelaker, and Thajib 2019) and the challenges and difficulties of making personal data public.

This paper argues that ethnographic data may be considered highly private and personal. Ethnography involves the immersion of the researcher in a particular community. For ethical reasons as well as to ensure the quality of the ethnography, researchers build mutual and close relationships with research participants (O'Reilly 2009), which can further grow into personal and intimate ties and even long-lasting friendships. This particularity requires a greater responsibility for the management and ethical handling of data (Imeri 2018) and creates a close bond between ethnographers, their research participants and their data.

Taking as a starting point the ethnographic approach, this paper discusses the relationship between the private and the public, and deals with the question of what the private and personal is, or should be. In doing so, the paper examines how Open Science shifts the boundaries between private and public and challenges ethnographic knowledge production.