One of the experiences that has stayed with me is coming across an example of a grant application where in the “data sharing and ethics” section the author described not sharing their data as a result of (something along the lines of) norms/standard practices in anthropology. That shaped my early interest in data sharing and questioning how that might look in my own project.
As I’ve gone through the IRB process as well as fieldwork & gathering/uploading archival materials, I’ve been concerned and questioning how to balance research participants/ willingness to share data, their priorities when it comes to privacy, with the institutional frameworks that exist for how that data can be shared, with who, through what bureaucratic processes, etc. In many ways, I think these processes don’t account for or are not designed to accommodate researchers for whom research sharing is a key practice and part of their research plan, and I’m not sure how that can be changed moving forward.
