cherianmampilly wrote:4.) To whom is transparency owed-- the academic community, the research subjects, or both? Does transparency only apply to the sharing of data or should it extend to the entire research process (i.e. sources of funding, researcher subjectivity, ideological orientation, etc.)? How can scholars achieve this transparency vis-a-vis these different audiences and different part of the research process?
This is an interesting question. My first reaction is that to the extent that transparency increases the validity of our inferences (which is not necessarily the case), then it is owed to both the academic community and the research subjects. For the academic community, not only to present something as accurately as possible (for descriptive or causal inference), but also to contribute to the collective goals of scientific understanding. (Not that the form this should take is obvious, or we wouldn't have this forum!)
But for the research subjects, I think we owe them the possibility to disagree with our inferences, or even with our representation of their story. In practice, of course, this is so difficult, and especially in the context of political violence where retribution and harm are possible.
Transparency may mean checking quotations with the interviewee, but again, in practice I am not sure how feasible this will be. One barrier is contacting interviewees again in some settings, where phones for example may not be easily accessible (though this seems to be changing quickly in many regions and could be one avenue for exploration - maybe send SMS snippets for approval?); and another is language, to the extent that the interviewer translates the original, then back again, there could be important ways that an interviewee still cannot verify exactly what is written.
I do not think that these misrepresentations are likely to be prevalent in our work, though I don't know why. I do think what is more likely is that on occasion a researcher misremembers or does not translate well.
Another issue is what sorts of standards we would place on any sort of duty to consult with subjects before publication, even if it were logistically feasible. My hope would be that informal standards would be enough for researchers to think through their duty to represent what they learned from their subjects as faithfully as possible.