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Something for posterity or hostage to fortune? Archiving anthropological field material (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate )
Author(s) -
Caplan Pat
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2010.00747.x
Subject(s) - historiography , face (sociological concept) , field (mathematics) , sociology , confidentiality , raw data , anthropology , history , media studies , law , social science , archaeology , political science , computer science , pure mathematics , programming language , mathematics
What do anthropologists do with all the data (both primary and secondary) they accumulate while doing fieldwork? Most continue to draw on it for many years, but there is increasing pressure (e.g. from the ESRC) to place much of it in archives, usually in electronic form. What kind of material could be deposited? What use may be made of such material by others? What are the ethical dilemmas which face anthropologists in depositing confidential data? Are there differences between paper and electronic archives and between textual and other forms of material, such as photos and sound recordings? How can anthropologists best protect their sources? Does anthropology become a form of historiography when its raw data are archived? What forms of ‘knowledge’ are created by archiving?