Skip to main content

Ethical Dilemmas in Studying Blogging by Favela Residents in Brazil

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Theorizing Fieldwork in the Humanities

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the place and contribution of empirical fieldwork in research on blogging by Brazilian favela residents, which combined analysis of digital texts with data collected on the practices involved in their production and circulation. Fieldwork is presented as a process and experience of “in-betweeness,” involving the crossing of imagined or real boundaries between humanities and social sciences ways of working, between cultural works and the human practices surrounding them, and between encounters on the internet and in person/in place. The discussion focuses on the negotiation of complex methodological and ethical issues relating to the status of bloggers as human subjects or authors, resulting from the dual focus on texts and practices in the context of digital culture.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Committee. 2012. Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AOIR Ethics Committee. http://ethics.aoir.org/

  • Banks, William P., and Michelle F. Eble. 2007. Digital Spaces, Online Environments and Human Participant Research: Interacting with Institutional Review Boards. In Digital Writing Research: Technologies, Methodologies, and Ethical Issues, eds. Heidi McKee, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss, 27–47. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bassett, Elizabeth H., and Kate O’Riordan. 2002. Ethics of Internet Research: Contesting the Human Subjects Model. Ethics and Information Technology 4(3): 233–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beaulieu, Anne, and Adolfo Estalella. 2012. Rethinking Research Ethics for Mediated Settings. Information, Communication & Society 15(1): 23–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blommaert, Jan. 2008. Grassroots Literacy: Writing, Identity and Voice in Central Africa. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borland, Katherine. 1991. ‘That’s Not What I Said’: Interpretive Conflict in Oral Narrative Research. In Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History, eds. Sherna Berger Gluck, and Daphne Patai, 63–75. New York and London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruckman, Amy. 2002. Studying the Amateur Artist: A Perspective on Disguising Data Collected in Human Subjects Research on the Internet. Ethics and Information Technology 4(3): 217–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, Kate. 2009. Following You: Disciplines of Listening in Social Media. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 23(4): 525–535.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eichhorn, Kate. 2001. Sites Unseen: Ethnographic Research in a Textual Community. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 14(4): 565–578.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franklin, Marianne. 2004. Postcolonial Politics, the Internet, and Everyday Life: Pacific Traversals Online. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, J. 2008. Television Pre-Views and the Meaning of Hype. International Journal of Cultural Studies 11(1): 33–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hess, Martin. 2004. ‘Spatial’ Relationships? Towards a Reconceptualization of Embeddedness. Progress in Human Geography 28(2): 165–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hine, Christine. 2000. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. Connective Ethnography for the Exploration of E-Science. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12(2): 618–634.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, Tori. 2012. The Travelling Texts of Local Content: Following Content Creation, Communication and Dissemination via Internet Platforms in a Brazilian Favela. Hispanic Issues Online 9: 263–288.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. Linking Internet Texts and Practices: Challenges and Opportunities of Interdisciplinarity in an Ethnographically Inspired Study of ‘Local Content’. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 9(3): 121–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horst, Heather, and Daniel Miller. 2006. The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication. Oxford: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaguaribe, Beatriz, and Kevin Hetherington. 2004. Favela Tours: Indistinct and Mapless Representations of the Real in Rio de Janeiro. In Tourism Mobilities. Places to Play, Places in Play, eds. Mimi Sheller, and John Urry, 155–166. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leu, Lorraine. 2004. The Press and the Spectacle of Violence in Contemporary Rio de Janeiro. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 13(3): 343–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • May, Shannon. 2010. Rethinking Anonymity in Anthropology: A Question of Ethics. Anthropology News 51(4): 10–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKee, Heidi A., and James E Porter. 2009. The Ethics of Internet Research: A Rhetorical, Case-Based Process. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Daniel, and Don Slater. 2000. The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nascimento, Érica Peçanha do. 2009. Vozes marginais na literatura. Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olinto, Gilda, and Suely Fragoso. 2011. Internet Use in Brazil: Speeding up or Lagging Behind? The Journal of Community Informatics 7(1–2). http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/835

  • Perlman, Janice. 2010. Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramos, Silvia. 2007. Jovens de favelas na produção cultural brasileira dos anos 90. In “Por que não?” Rupturas e continuidades da contracultura, eds. Maria Isabel Mendes de Almeida and Santuza Cambraia Naves, 239–256. Rio de Janeiro: 7Letras.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramos, Silvia, and Anabela Paiva. 2007. Mídia e violência—Novas tendências na cobertura de criminalidade e segurança no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: IUPERJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sousa Silva, Eliana. 2002. Censo Maré 2000: Uma experiência de coleta e geração de informações socioculturais e econômicas numa favela da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Trabalho e Sociedade 2(3): 15–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Souza e Silva, Jailson de, and Jorge Luiz Barbosa. 2005. Favela, alegria e dor na cidade. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Senac Rio.

    Google Scholar 

  • Souza e Silva, Jailson de, Jorge Luiz Barbosa, Mariana de Oliveira Biteti, and Fernando Lannes Fernandes, eds. 2009. O que é a favela, afinal? Rio de Janeiro: Observatório de Favelas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sveningsson Elm, Malin. 2009. Question Three. How Do Various Notions of Privacy Influence Decisions in Qualitative Internet Research? In Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method, eds. A. Markham, and N.K. Baym, 69–87. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevisan, Filippo, and Paul Reilly. 2014. Ethical Dilemmas in Researching Sensitive Issues Online: Lessons from the Study of British Disability Dissent Networks. Information, Communication & Society 17(9): 1131–1146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, David, and Mike Thelwall. 2011. Researching Personal Information on the Public Web: Methods and Ethics. Social Science Computer Review 29(4): 387–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Holmes, T. (2016). Ethical Dilemmas in Studying Blogging by Favela Residents in Brazil. In: Puri, S., Castillo, D. (eds) Theorizing Fieldwork in the Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-92834-7_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics