(Where did April go? A much belated post. More general update to come. Photo courtesy my cousin Paul, taken at Greenwich on the day the clock sprang forward.)
My trips to the UK for the British Forum of Ethnomusicology is turning into a bit of an annual pilgrimage. The attendees are from all parts of Europe and beyond, and it is three days of ideas, conversations, and mingling with an inspiring group of people. Technology makes reaching out to people around the world much easier, but nothing seems to beat just one face-to-face interaction in terms of establishing rapport, and connecting a voice and a face to a name.
One idea being kicked around as a result of the conference involves looking at the ethics of preserving and ‘returning’ ethnographic research data, as a way to start articulating the different concerns researchers have when deciding what to do with their research data. The common response is, of course they want to share my work, but there are fundamental economic and ethical considerations with no easy solution. Each researcher seem to be dealing with challenges that are specific to their circumstances, but it is probably useful to have a way of conceptualizing the problem into a framework that can be broadly applied. There were also related conversations about how to design a platform to solicit and disseminate research beyond papers, and encourage the use of multimedia in research publication.
