The elephant in the room: Challenges for ethnographic data management repositories

Abstract

Today’s scientific research funding is often inextricably linked to data management which in turn presupposes data accessibility and sustainability. Common criteria are FAIR Data Principles and open access dissemination of research data. Yet, the University of Vienna-based pilot project ‘Ethnographic data archiving’ highlights the limitations which arise in the process of establishing ethnographic data management repositories. These do not only result from practical and subject-specific challenges but also concern current legal and ethical requirements to organizing repositories. The article aims to discuss some of the challenges and limitations of creating and sustaining repositories for ethnographic fieldwork data.