"FIELD RESEARCH". ITS MEANING AND HISTORY

Today’s podcast is based upon J. P. Linstroth’s encyclopedia entry, “Field Research” (2008, 2012). It should be known today that all field researchers must be aware of their role in the field and of their effects on their subjects in both informal and formal contexts. Therefore, reflexivity is an important aspect of the researcher's work. Field research is guided by past experience and informed by the mistakes of previous research when ethical guidelines were not as strict-for example, in U.S. the Tuskegee Syphilis Project, in which unnecessary harm was caused when the treatment for syphilis was withheld from study participants even when penicillin became available; the U.S. Department of Defense's Project Camelot, a U.S Army program that was designed to evaluate the causes of warfare, but in actuality was used to undermine revolutionary movements in places like Latin America; psychologist Stanley Milgram's studies of behavioral aspects of authority and obedience, studies that were highly controversial because of the ethical concerns raised by his use of deception in experiments using electric shock; or even the most recent controversy involving anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and geneticist James Neel about the Yanomami peoples of Brazil and Venezuela. Ethics review boards of universities, especially those in the United States, were created to guarantee against unwarranted deception and to ensure informed consent as well as the privacy and confidentiality of the study participants (as appropriate). Such ethical requirements for the study of human subjects involve the respect for all persons and their well-being and provide a framework for moral standards to follow during field research.