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Informed consent

When researchers go into some community to ask questions and make recordings, they should always be sure that they have the informed consent of the people they work with to record them, and to use those recordings and conversations in their research. This simply means that they should explain to people what the program is: what are the consultants going to be asked to do, and what is the researcher going to do with the recordings and notes that are produced. The consultants should have a chance to say yes or no to every stage of the proceedings. For example, someone might agree to allow an audio recording to be made while they are telling a story, but not a video recording, or they might agree to let the researcher write down what they are saying but not to record it. For most of us, this is really a matter of common courtesy: we ask permission before we take someone's picture or turn on the tape recorder, and we explain to people why we are sitting there writing down their every word and asking endless questions about plurals and pronouns and the uses of the maguey plant.

Researchers should also explain to their consultants what they plan to do with the data they are collecting, and who will hear the recordings that are being made. Most researchers will want to write articles, theses, etc. using at least samples from this data. Most consultants probably understand that the researcher is planning to publish some of the material that they are providing, and that their stories are likely to end up in a book somewhere someday.

Archiving texts, recordings, and pictures with AILLA is a form of publication, except that it is much easier to access materials through the Internet than it is to check books out of a library. If you can, it is a good idea to ask people for permission to archive their work, explaining that if they do, anyone in the world will be able to hear or read what they have said. If they want, you can work with the options in our Graded Access System to help them restrict access to specific materials.

If it isn't possible to ask your consultants about archiving the materials you would like to deposit, it may still be all right. If your consultants gave you permission to publish their works as part of your research, it is likely that they would also agree to allow you to archive those works at AILLA. You will just have to use your own judgement; we can't provide a rule or guideline that covers every possible case in all of Latin America. Some people are very private, while others are eager to be heard. Some communities want to retain close control over the myths and stories of their culture, while others leave that to the individual. Archiving recordings may carry some risk for some people, but it also offers great benefits for many people. If you are uncertain, you could archive the materials at Level 3, which requires users to ask you for permission to access those resources. This way, the resources would be safely preserved while you go through whatever steps are necessary to discuss the matter with your consultants.

We at AILLA expect our depositors to act in an ethical manner in depositing indigenous language materials with us, and we will not knowingly archive materials that were gathered unethically. Our responsibility is to safeguard the resources that you send to us, in accordance with the requirements that you specify on your deposit forms. We rely on you to act in good faith, both towards the archive and the speaker community, when you send us materials to deposit.