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Journalism was mentioned somewhere. I think, the outlining of certain ethics and of certain required elements of methodology as noncoveredness within academic anthropological ethnography targets especially on drawing a line between academically sealed knowledge production and free journalism. If this is necessary at all and if there is any difference between those two spheres of knowledge production, might indeed need to be reflected anew.

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Sorry if I’m not making my objection clear, I ought to learn to express myself better.

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Ozma: I agree that this is very similar to Ehrenreich’s work — and admit that, although I love _Nickel and Dimed_, this is one of two things that made me uncomfortable about the work (the other is that I doubt a very deep understanding can be reached in 30 days of “fieldwork” — while day-to-day expenses are difficult, Ehrenreich never had to worry about what would happen if she got sick on her working woman’s income, or if her house burned down, or if her car was stolen, the kinds of emergencies that, more often than basic cost of living concerns, ruin workers of whatever gender). I understand the precautions taken — the pseudonyms and protected identities of interviewees, etc. — but I think that the general concern is still worth discussing.

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I guess the term “ethnography” has certain boundaries for me and I’m not willing to extend it to certain instances.

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Something that worries me about anthropological discussions of ethics is that it participates in the creeping professionalization of our discipline, along the lines of medicine (principally) and law (to which our practice is perhaps more comparable). Let’s not forget that codes of professional ethics in those fields are not all high-mindedness; they were and are part of the self-invention of those forms of knowledge and practice as professional guilds: virtuous insiders in, naughty outsiders out.

I’m not trying to dismiss discussions of ethics (which are, of course, important) – just to suggest we understand all the implications of vociferous denunciation.
As they always have, smart insightful people are going to continue to write about social relations and human nature based on their accumulated observations of the world, and they are not going to have to call themselves anthropologists to do it (nor to find an audience for their work). That’s a *good* thing, right?

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This is a general principle, one which Nathan surely knows about, as her decision in certain instances to reveal her ideantity shows. But, of course, it is likely true that revealing herself in every instance would limit her access to some information (though nothing mentioned in the article would be that difficult to approach using a methodology other than participant-observation). So the question is, how did Nathan herself think her way though these ethical issues? I’m not saying out of hand that she was wrong, I’m saying that a breach of ethics this large had better have a pretty good explanation.

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Nathan had resolved that, if asked, she would not lie about her identity; she found that her classmates, if they were curious about why she was attending college at her age, never questioned her about her personal life.

I’m sure the author was fully aware of the ethical dilemmas involved. However, I’m not sure why this represents “clandestine” research. She legitimately enrtolled at the university and di legitimate coursework, as anyone can. And books published by students about their life as students are rather common these days.

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1. For thinking about the ethics of this its important to notice what she actually did: she DID identify herself as a researcher, get informed consent for interviews and make it clear she intended to publish the work. The deception involved was that (with the approval of her IRB) her informed consent form didn’t state that she was a college professor when she wasn’t doing the research, although when people asked her directly about her life she told them (this is from the comments to the “Inside Higher Ed” piece). I could perhaps be persuaded otherwise, but this seems OK to me. Certainly it would be interesting (as a kind of reflexive ethnography point) to see what people thought about that fact. As for the problems that arise from the vast numbers of people one encounters casually in any research setting who DON’T know what one is doing there, she seems to have handled it the way I imagine most of us do: one can’t help learning from one’s encounters with them, but one doesn’t quote them or discuss things they do.

2. My other comments have to do with the degree to which her results are valid accross diffferent college/university settings. My experience teaching at different institutions suggests that the vary culturally quite widely–at one small college I was told by a student that she had been admonished for talking in class because it “made the rest of us look bad.” At another (also a small college) a student told me he was happy to be done with his thesis because now he had time to attend some films extra film studies classes. All this likely varies between groups of students
in ways that would be clearer working with juniors or seniors than with frosh. Finally, there is a lot going on at college that has not much to do with doing OR avoiding work–it will be interesting to see to what extent she deals with that. And if the book is any good, it might be interesting to teach! (No point if the result will just be slagging it).

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