‘Is Anthropology Legal?’

In May 2018, the European Union (EU) introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with the aim of increasing transparency in data processing and enhancing the rights of data subjects. Within anthropology, concerns have been raised about how the new legislation will affect ethnographic fieldwork and whether the laws contradict the discipline’s core tenets. To address these questions, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London hosted an event on 25 May 2018 entitled ‘Is Anthropology Legal?’, bringing together researchers and data managers to begin a dialogue about the future of anthropological work in the context of the GDPR. In this article, I report and reflect on the event and on the possible implications for anthropological research within this climate of increasing governance

The ethics of secondary data analysis: learning from the experience of sharing qualitative data from young people and their families in an international study of childhood poverty

This working paper focuses on secondary analysis, an aspect of research practice that is sometimes assumed to pose few ethical challenges. It draws in particular on the experience of a collaborative research project involving secondary analysis of qualitative data collected as part of an ongoing international longitudinal study, Young Lives (www.younglives.org.uk), and sets this alongside a wider review of regulatory guidance on research ethics and academic debates. Secondary analysis can take many forms, and bring many benefits. But it is more ethically complex than regulatory frameworks may imply. Whether or not data are publicly archived, ethical considerations have to be addressed, including responsibilities to participants and the original researchers, and the need to achieve a contextual understanding of the data by identifying and countering risks of misinterpretation. The considerations raised here are intended to aid ethical research practice by supporting planning and reflection – for primary researchers who are planning to archive their data, as well as for researchers embarking on a qualitative secondary analysis. Not least, our experience highlights the importance of developing and maintaining trusting relationships between primary and secondary researchers

The promotion of data sharing in pharmacoepidemiology

This article addresses the role of pharmacoepidemiology in patient safety and the crucial role of data sharing in ensuring that such activities occur. Against the backdrop of proposed reforms of European data protection legislation, it considers whether the current legislative landscape adequately facilitates this essential data sharing. It is argued that rather than maximising and promoting the benefits of such activities by facilitating data sharing, current and proposed legislative landscapes hamper these vital activities. The article posits that current and proposed data protection approaches to pharmacoepidemiology — and more broadly, re-uses of data — should be reoriented towards enabling these important safety enhancing activities. Two potential solutions are offered: 1) a dedicated working party on data reuse for health research and 2) the introduction of new, dedicated legislation

Report to the Childhood Development Initiative on Archiving of C.D.I. Data

This report presents the ethical and legal issues involved in depositing data-sets of research for secondary use in Ireland

Sharing Social Research Data in Ireland: A Practical Tool

Your data is valuable and has an importance outside your own original project. Allowing other researchers to reuse your data maximises the impact of your work, and benefits both the scholarly community and society in general. Sharing your data allows other researchers to use your material in ways you may not have thought of, or may not have been able to do within your research project. It allows other researchers to replicate your findings, to verify your results, test your instruments and compare with other studies. It also allows them to use your work to expand knowledge in important areas. It provides value for money by reducing duplication and advancing knowledge and also has a significant value in education, as it allows both graduate and under-graduate students to develop their skills in qualitative and quantitative research by using high-quality data in their studies, without having to conduct their own surveys.Archiving your data also guarantees its long-term preservation and accessibility. As many research teams are assembled only for individual projects, long-term preservation and access to research data collections can only be guaranteed if they are deposited in an archive which will manage them, ensure access and provide user-support. In addition, the archives will ensure that the datasets do not become obsolescent or corrupted.Finally, increasingly funders require that you make your research data available as a condition of their funding your research, so that other researchers can test your findings, and use your data to extend research in your area. Equally, publishers are also specifying access to research data as a condition for publication