Paper short abstract:

The paper presents some best practices and recent international developments from relevant European research infrastructures and makes a case for ethnographic data sharing by presenting a personal experience of openly sharing ethnographic research data.

Paper long abstract:

Research data availability and accessibility are the main elements of the Open Science agenda. The term open research data is used for data which are “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” (H2020, 2016). In other words, while researchers are striving to achieve openness, they still need to take into consideration the issues of data protection, property rights and security. This is reflected and supported also in the Statement on Data Governance in Ethnographic Projects by the European Association of Social Anthropologists.

The benefits of opening research data in ethnographic research are numerous, such as adding dimensionality to data analysis through collaboration, reinterpreting and reusing of data, improving and extending the use of research resources, complying with new laws and the mandates of funding agencies etc. However, there are also many issues to consider, such as privacy issues, ensuring appropriate data archiving and sharing that benefits research subjects, rewards and credit, weighing between time and effort needed to prepare data for sharing and benefits of sharing, addressing ethical issues and complying with the relevant legislature, assuring appropriate technical infrastructure etc.

The paper will firstly explore the promises and challenges of data sharing in ethnographic research by presenting some best practices and recent international developments from relevant European research infrastructures (e.g. CESSDA, DARIAH, CLARIN). Secondly, it will make a case for ethnographic data sharing by showing a personal experience of openly sharing ethnographic research data, collected during fieldwork in Morocco (ex. video materials, pictures, drawings, field diaries, social media posts).