ERIC Number: EJ1228500
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Nov
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0049-1241
EISSN: N/A
The Ethical Dilemmas and Social Scientific Trade-Offs of Masking in Ethnography
Jerolmack, Colin; Murphy, Alexandra K.
Sociological Methods & Research, v48 n4 p801-827 Nov 2019
Masking, the practice of hiding or distorting identifying information about people, places, and organizations, is usually considered a requisite feature of ethnographic research and writing. This is justified both as an ethical obligation to one's subjects and as a scientifically neutral position (as readers are enjoined to treat a case's idiosyncrasies as sociologically insignificant). We question both justifications, highlighting potential ethical dilemmas and obstacles to constructing cumulative social science that can arise through masking. Regarding ethics, we show, on the one hand, how masking may give subjects a false sense of security because it implies a promise of confidentiality that it often cannot guarantee and, on the other hand, how naming may sometimes be what subjects want and expect. Regarding scientific tradeoffs, we argue that masking can reify ethnographic authority, exaggerate the universality of the case (e.g., "Middletown"), and inhibit replicability (or "revisits") and sociological comparison. While some degree of masking is ethically and practically warranted in many cases and the value of disclosure varies across ethnographies, we conclude that masking should no longer be the default option that ethnographers unquestioningly choose.
Descriptors: Ethics, Ethnography, Sociology, Social Science Research, Confidentiality, Comparative Analysis, Disclosure, Audiences, Barriers
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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