Data Sharing and Archiving Qualitative and QL Data in Poland

To what extent is data sharing or archiving for re-use part of the research culture in Poland? Based on the example of probably all social sciences it might be said that data sharing is not a part of research culture at all. There has been no academic tradition of such kind in social sciences in Poland. Although the problem is being brought up at least occasionally no significant change has been noticed within the rather conservative sociological main stream. Furthermore, whereas some social scientists are skeptical about sharing their own data, others, e.g. anthropologist, are reluctant even to use qualitative data not gathered by themselves (their motto: the researcher has to soak in the atmosphere of the field”, “only he/she knows what is the real meaning of the collected materials, because he/she was there, usually for a long period, he/she experienced the situation and as a consequence only he/she can properly interpret the data”). Therefore, it is more likely that using someone else’s qualitative data in a project (obviously with a permission of the author) might cause deep methodological concerns of more experienced colleagues rather than arouse academic interest or approval.