Gina Crivello will be presenting at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Cultural Anthropology which this year explores collaboration as an important methodological and ethical concern in anthropology.
Her paper will reflect on the complexities of negotiating relationships, research reciprocity and closure at the end of a long-term qualitative study with children. Since 2002, the Young Lives team has used been working wihth 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam to trace their life trajectories and development. We have also been working with a nested sample of 200 children and their families, through in-depth interviews, group discussions and creative methods to understand their everyday experiences of poverty and their trajectories over time. While collaboration has been a standard framework in anthropology, such long-term, child-focused, mixed methods studies are rare in international development.
The fourth field visit in 2014 signalled the end of this stream of research, and included some questions about the participants' experiences being part of Young Lives and comments on 'research closure’.Focusing on the moment of ‘saying goodbye’ brings to light, on the one hand, the sense of a ‘constrained ethics’ giving rise to tensions and frustrations; for example, participants do not gain any material benefit from being part of the study and fieldworkers are asked not to give personal gifts or contacts to families. On the other hand, a ‘transformative ethics’ is also at play and creates a generative space for new capacities, identities, relationships and data. We conclude that long-term collaboration with vulnerable children and families has meant developing an ethical literacy that acknowledges both constraints and transformative potential, and goes beyond the moment of ‘saying goodbye’.
‘We’re like family now’: Negotiating relationships, reciprocity and closure at the end of alongitudinal qualitative research collaboration (forthcoming working paper by Gina Crivello [presenting], Vanessa Rojas Arangoitia, Yisak Tafere, Uma Vennam, and Vu Thi Thanh Huong)
Gina Crivello will be presenting at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Cultural Anthropology which this year explores collaboration as an important methodological and ethical concern in anthropology.
Her paper will reflect on the complexities of negotiating relationships, research reciprocity and closure at the end of a long-term qualitative study with children. Since 2002, the Young Lives team has used been working wihth 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam to trace their life trajectories and development. We have also been working with a nested sample of 200 children and their families, through in-depth interviews, group discussions and creative methods to understand their everyday experiences of poverty and their trajectories over time. While collaboration has been a standard framework in anthropology, such long-term, child-focused, mixed methods studies are rare in international development.
The fourth field visit in 2014 signalled the end of this stream of research, and included some questions about the participants' experiences being part of Young Lives and comments on 'research closure’.Focusing on the moment of ‘saying goodbye’ brings to light, on the one hand, the sense of a ‘constrained ethics’ giving rise to tensions and frustrations; for example, participants do not gain any material benefit from being part of the study and fieldworkers are asked not to give personal gifts or contacts to families. On the other hand, a ‘transformative ethics’ is also at play and creates a generative space for new capacities, identities, relationships and data. We conclude that long-term collaboration with vulnerable children and families has meant developing an ethical literacy that acknowledges both constraints and transformative potential, and goes beyond the moment of ‘saying goodbye’.
‘We’re like family now’: Negotiating relationships, reciprocity and closure at the end of alongitudinal qualitative research collaboration (forthcoming working paper by Gina Crivello [presenting], Vanessa Rojas Arangoitia, Yisak Tafere, Uma Vennam, and Vu Thi Thanh Huong)