Who do you serve? Thinking about the ethics of research practice in rural cultural research
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Development Node
Co-ordinators: Emily Potter and Clifton Evers
Friday 17 October 2008
University of Melbourne
This one-day workshop, supported by the Cultural Histories and Geographies Node, will bring together postgraduate, ECR and established researchers to think through and critically discuss the question of ethics in rural cultural research practice. Building on the ‘Doing Rural Cultural Studies’ workshop organised by the PG/ECR node in March this year, this event turns its attention to a specific and highly charged aspect of the process and outcome of rural cultural research: the question of ‘who do you serve?’. This time, two senior researchers in the field – Ross Gibson and Kate Bowles – have been invited to join the original participants of the March workshop to share their experience and provide commentary on the day’s proceedings. Discussion will focus on a range of questions circulated to participants beforehand. One or two postgraduates in the Melbourne area who did not attend the initial workshop will also be invited to ‘sit in’ at the event.
Three key outcomes will result from this event. The first is the consolidation of the cohort of rural researchers that met in March, thus building on the momentum and collegiality created by that event. The second is a set of recordings of the day’s proceedings that will be made available online as a resource for researchers working in the field. The third is the preparation of material for a seminar about issues of ethics and rural research that can be taken to the very rural communities that are being investigated in the participants’ research; the presentation of this seminar at a rural site is a further event that will be proposed for 2009.
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