Els mètodes: la campanya negativa i la permanent

In orthodox ethnography, cultural and social reality is ‘out there’ and independent of human thought and values. Classic ethnography seeks to objectively capture and represent this social reality. Interpretive ethnography presents a challenge to this view of reality and describes a theoretical perspective which views cultural and social reality as a textual construction influenced by historical formations and contemporary developments (Denzin, 1997). Interpretive ethnography as a language is a construct used to create and narrate the researcher’s self and the researched world. My collection of and descriptions of what I found in the course of the research data are influenced both by my role as a PhD researcher and by my desire to create a coherent narrative about the world I observed. I return to a discussion of this in the discussion of my approach to data collection. However, it is relevant here because it assisted me in connecting to the broader and wider significance of the study. The regulation of research ethics is viewed as created by historical forces (with their foundations in the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki) and its current practices are both produced and maintained by cultural forces which (in contemporary society) are dominated by a preoccupation with risk and procedure. The significance of my research is that starts with the local but has to connect to broader social themes if it is to be of any consequence. Connecting to these cultural forces and identifying how these influence and are influenced by what happens in the day-to-day work of ethical regulation is part of the project. I now want to show how the above influences were distilled into the ethnographic methods which I employed, particularly those of institutional ethnography.

Ethnographic approaches are typically described as shedding light on, uncovering or discovering social worlds, with ethnographers generally using observational methods (as participant or not) in conducting the research (Miller,1997). Traditionally, participation and immersion were seen as integral to ethnography. For Brewer (2000) ethnography is the study of people in naturally occurring settings or ‘fields’ using methods of data collection which capture their social meanings and ordinary activities. The direct participation in the setting and/or the activity allows the researcher to collect data in a systematic manner. Though it is important to adopt a systematic approach, I am unsure about the link between participation and systematic collection of data. On setting out to research as participant or not, it is always unclear what dilemmas and challenges may occur in the field and which may get in the way of a systematic approach. More appealing to me is Eberle and Meader’s account (2011) which describes ethnography as taking into account the furniture, the architecture, spatial arrangements, interactions and documents produced in the field which suggests the possibility of a vivid evocation of the world which is entered with the physical (the furniture and architecture) being an integral part of the whole experience of collecting data. In my observations over the course of this PhD, I have experienced how important the surroundings are, the spatial arrangements of RECs are important. Committees group around a conference table bringing formality to the proceedings, nameplates are displayed in front of committee members which distinguish the hierarchy and category of membership, and the interactions and use of documents are all treated as data in this study.

Ethnographies of RECs are challenging due to the timing of RECs and the frequency of ‘capacity’ studies’ being reviewed. At the start of my study during negotiations, it was agreed that if I concentrated on a small number of RECs that I would attend observations of a larger group of RECs when capacity studies were due to be reviewed. Previous studies of internal decision-making in RECs in the UK have involved attending a small number of RECs for repeated observations (Hedgecoe, 2012) and this is in line with Stark’s research on Institutional Review Boards in the United States (2012). These have not had a particular focus on ‘capacity’ studies though these authors might refer to decision- making about consent. Although there may be a potential difficulty in the sampling strategy I adopted (attending RECs for

description’, (Geertz,1973) I discuss in the next chapter, that Geertz describes also how in the act of interpreting the researcher has to hold two concepts ‘experience- near’ and ‘experience-distant’ simultaneously. I would argue that I was able to maintain these positions. I was aiming for immersion and familiarity with the social world of ethical regulation not in the REC exclusively though of course this was an integral part of the review process.

Ethnographic research derives from early anthropological research where immersion and participation were key to describing and discovering ‘cultures’. Iconic ethnographies involved immersion sometimes for many months and participation (in some cases covert) was a crucial way of accessing data (Humphreys 1970, Rosenhan1973). However, there are alternative perspectives about whether ethnographic research has to be characterised by immersion and participation and qualitative researchers do not necessarily take a constricted view. For Delamont (2004), even the terminology is equivocal as ethnography, participant observation and fieldwork are used interchangeably. What characterises these is that they involve spending long periods watching and talking to people with the common purpose of finding out how they view their world. For Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) a strong feature is the emphasis on exploring the nature of social phenomena rather than setting out to test hypotheses. For these authors a sense on getting involved and getting to know the field is crucial but this may not involve participant involvement or immersion.

The research I have undertaken is ethnographic. I have aimed to describe, explore and discover and I attempt to ‘map’ the work of a particular culture. An important part of the process of locating the study in the most relevant methodological paradigm has been the definition of the field and the extension of the field from the REC to institutionalised ethical regulation with the REC being where review takes place.