SLAIS
COMMUNITY ARCHIVES AND IDENTITIES
PROJECT MANAGEMENT BOARD
13 MAY 2008
AGENDA ITEM 3(A): CHOSEN METHODOLOGY
a) Choice of methodology
Whilst this project will deploy a range of qualitiative research methods, including interviewing and focus
groups, the dominant method is ethnography, based on particpant observation. This methodology has been
chosen for the following reasons: i.
It implies a sustained engagement with the chosen case studies. This will enable us to build
up a picture of the work of community archives and the challenges they face that goes
beyond existing research, which by dint of its methodology, has tended to produce
snapshots.
ii.
As a corollary, the use of participant observation tends to shift the focus from product (e.g.
the archive) to process (e.g. the ‘archivalisation’ of memory).1 This is consistent with
current shifts in archival theory.
iii.
It enables the collection of data on ‘tacit knowledge, that is, unstated practices and norms
shared among community members.’2 This knowledge may dictate how certain processes
are conducted, but may well remain invisible to researchers using less immersive research
methods. This is essential for understanding the working practices of community archives.
iv.
By documenting the everyday processes of acquisition, cataloguing and dissemination in some
detail an an ethnographic approach to community archives can help generate the data to make
explicit the links between the materiality of the past and the construction of social identities,
whilst accounting for the way these are mediated by external bodies such as funding agencies,
mainstream archives and government policy frameworks.
v.
Ethnography seeks to foreground the insider’s perspective; we are keen to understand the
work of community archives from the point of view of those engaged in them, and to act as
a conduit for that perspective to a wider audience of academics and policy-makers.
vi.
Sustained engagement with case studies gives them an opportunity to engage more fully
with our research questions and design and to help shape them. Ethnography allows for a
more collaborative approach to research and hence hopefully to a better fit between
research findings and concrete experience.
b) Practical implications
This choice of methodology means that in practice the research assistant (Mary) will spend up to 2.5 days a
week working with the case studies who are encouraged to think about how they might use her as a volunteer
in order both to give her access to the day-to-day work of the archives and also so that the burden of
participation is not too onerous and the archives derive immediate concrete benefits from their involvement
with the project. During her time as a volunteer Mary will take notes on her experiences, to be written up as
fieldnotes once out of the ‘field’. In each case study it is hoped that there will be a combination of hands-on
work and opportunities to attend and observe meetings etc. Fieldnotes will then be analysed using qualitative
data analysis software (NVivo). One of the implications of this research methodology is that the process of
data collection generates research themes (‘grounded theory’); the categories for data analysis will thus
emerge during the research process.
1
2
Cook T. (2001) 'Archival Science and Postmodernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts', Archival Science 1: 3-24, p.4
Gracy K. (2004) 'Documenting Communities of Practice: Making the Case for Archival Ethnography', Archival Science 4 (34): 335-365, p.336.
In reality, as the ‘Case Studies briefing paper’ makes clear, negotiating the putting-in-place of these
arrangements is often proving complex and difficult.
c) Issues arising
The following points are intended to give an overview of some of the key areas of difficulty associated with
the chosen research methodology. It seems increasingly likely that a key output from the research will be a
paper addressing the use of ethnography as a research tool in archival research, and as a consequence it is
useful to note some of the key issues arising.
i.
Confidentiality
The research team has taken the view that whilst anonymity is the norm in social research, in the limited
field of BME community archives formal anonymity is insufficient to ensure confidentiality: anyone with
knowledge of the sector would be able to identify the participants. In order fully to secure full confidentiality
so much circumstantial data would have to be omitted (e.g. the location of the archive or the nature of the
community it serves) that it would be hard to present the research in a meaningful and interesting way. We
are trying to encourage the community archives involved in the research to agree to be named in the
research, on the understanding that they will have the opportunity to comment on any research outputs in
draft form before they are more widely circulated. However, the very richness of the data produced by the
choice of methodology and which makes the identification of the archives so inevitable is also,
paradoxically, producing a reluctance on the part of the archives involved to be identified, for fear that
information that could jeopardise their future operations might be disclosed.
ii.
Consent
Negotiating informed consent is a pre-requisite of any social research project. Acquiring consent is however
a much more complex process for participant observation than for other research methods, such as
interviewing, where the ‘research moment’ is precisely delimited. For the purposes of this research project
we are requiring organisations to sign consent forms, generally through their trustees or board members. Key
participants will also be required to sign consent forms. Informal consent will be sought in other situations
e.g. if the researcher is attending a meeting with a number of participants with whom she does not have
regular contact. ‘Informal consent’ means that those present must be informed of and understand the purpose
of the researcher’s presence.
iii.
Impact of researcher on project
One thing that has to be taken into account is the impact of the researcher on the community archive, especially if
the researcher takes an active role in decision-making. It is however worth recalling that no research method can
offer unmediated access to social reality; all research methods impact to some degree on the phenomena they are
seeking to document. The advantage of ethnography is perhaps that the process of writing fieldnotes incoporates
reflexivity on the part of the researcher and as a consequence it is perhaps better placed to acknowledge the impact
of the researcher on field of study than many more positivist methods.
iv.
Use of data produced by researcher
One area which the research team is having to negotiate is the use of data produced by the researcher for the
case studies, but which has a bearing on the research project e.g. impact evaluations. In theory this data is
intellectual property of the case study and cannot be used for the research project. Negotiating the use of this
data is by no means impossible, but at the root of the question of intellectual property is the more challenging
question of the ambiguity of the reseacher’s role: volunteer or researcher, participant or observer?
Mary Stevens
9 May 2008
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