New challenges for fieldworkers in Latin American and Caribbean studies

Abstract

This essay aims to stimulate debate by proposing that the imposition of ill-conceived research protocols by universities and grant giving institutions not only blocks the kind of personal contact between researchers and subjects that makes for insightful findings, but actually imperils the researchers themselves. The protocols are meant to protect research subjects from harm, but this goal is a far more complex and difficult undertaking than those imposing these protocols seem to grasp. In particular, ethics administrators' focus on obtaining 'informed consent' underscores their lack of direct experience with the full process of research and dissemination of findings because the decisive point that bears on the safety and happiness of research subjects is not the moment when these people accept the fieldworker's invitation to share their thoughts and experiences. Rather, it is the inevitably difficult decisions made by researchers regarding how much of the material they have collected can actually be published.