Over the last few days there has been a lot of discussion about journalism, free speech, and the ability to access public space and document and report on what is happening there. At the University of Missouri, a young student photo-journalist wanted to report and document a group of protesters he believed to be "reveling" in victory. Under mounting pressure from activists (them), football players, and national media attention, the president of the University of Missouri system had just stepped down. Surely those activists wanted to be able to disseminate this message; have everyone see their joy, right? No. They did not. They wanted a safe space to be able to enjoy the moment among themselves, among the people that fought for that victory. They didn't want outsiders there. And whatever their reasons - be it that there were people that didn't want or couldn't be documented there, or that they just wanted privacy - this photo journalist felt that he had the right not only personally, but within the first amendment of the United States constitution, to be in that space and document it. He did not feel he needed the permission of the people he would be documenting to document them. Is this journalist entitled to access to other people's lives? Does he have the legal right to simply document whatever he sees in a public space without the consent of those present there?
I'm an anthropologist. I study protest, radical politics, and in some cases illegal acts of political resistance and upheaval. I could have been in that space. I could have been trying to engage in participant observation and interview those protesters. Yet, ethically, and as per the American Anthropological Association's guidelines for research, I would need to gain the consent of the people I was studying and interviewing. At minimum my research project would have gone through an extensive 30 odd page Institutional Review Broad (IRB) application. This process would have assessed the ethics, approaches, and merits of my work when measured against the laws and norms for the ethical treatment of research subjects. In short, I have to gain permission from the people I'm studying, and approval from an ethics board that my work will not harm any of my subjects before I can do any research.
I'm an anthropologist. I study protest, radical politics, and in some cases illegal acts of political resistance and upheaval. I could have been in that space. I could have been trying to engage in participant observation and interview those protesters. Yet, ethically, and as per the American Anthropological Association's guidelines for research, I would need to gain the consent of the people I was studying and interviewing. At minimum my research project would have gone through an extensive 30 odd page Institutional Review Broad (IRB) application. This process would have assessed the ethics, approaches, and merits of my work when measured against the laws and norms for the ethical treatment of research subjects. In short, I have to gain permission from the people I'm studying, and approval from an ethics board that my work will not harm any of my subjects before I can do any research.
