Methods as Ethics: Slides from a recent keynote

Annette Markham

Mar 11, 2017

I gave a keynote last week for the 2017 Death Online Research Symposium. To wrap up, as the fourth (of four) keynotes, I focused the discussion on techniques and vocabularies for doing research of sensitive topics, or in precarious situations, such as studying death or death online. The talk addresses three key points:

  1. The first overall point is about how we ‘move’ as we do our research. To emphasize and revisit the relation between the researcher and researched.
  2. The second point is why it matters, in terms of our impact as as researchers, which is a matter of doing the right thing, vis a vis producing future values, knowledge, and privacy and potential vulnerabilities in a digital era.
  3. The third point is a discussion about methods as choices at critical junctures, which shifts the accountability for ethical enactment of methods to the researcher rather than the tools we use or the regulatory disciplinary models we follow.

Below, I have slides (sans animations), a transcript of my notes, and 30 or 37 minutes of Audio recording. [yes, yes, i know i need to combine all three, but who has time for that sort of thing?]
audio file-cuts off prior to the end
rough speaking notes from PPT