Proposal: Ethics and Approval

Statement of Ethical Practice

      1.      Confidentiality: All living informants will be asked to fill out a consent form which would indicate whether they wanted their knowledge or views to be kept confidential.  For the sake of not plagiarizing, the ideas my living informants share with me that did not originate with me, but in fact were their own original ideas, will be attributed to them unless they should indicate wanting otherwise on their consent form.  Regardless of this, however, their information will not be published in any raw format, if it is used it will be presented as a part of my final product and only I and possibly my mentor will have access to my field notes where I recorded their thoughts and ideas.  Because none of the information they share will be of a confidential nature, I will not be destroying the notes I take.

      2.      Obtain informed consent without coercion: I will inform my living informants about my research, and ask them if they mind speaking with me about their knowledge concerning the African American expatriates who came to France during the 1920s and 1930s.  I will also ask them about their understanding of French Jazz, and where it came from.  After informing them, and asking for verbal consent, I will obtain written consent--a form in French giving me permission to take informal notes on their ideas and knowledge.  Furthermore, if my informant seems upset, distressed, or frustrated by the interview, the information they hold, while valuable, is not more valuable to me than their comfort in speaking with me about the subject, and I will thank my informants and end the interview.

      3.      Minimize risk and maximize benefit: There are minimal risks related to the participants of this study, as I will not require any confidential information of them, ask them about any sensitive subjects, and am not targeting any particularly vulnerable populations.  Furthermore, I do not expect any emotion  or psychological distress in this study.  As one main aspect of my research is to become acquainted with Paris and its areas, however, one potential risk is my safety.  I plan to offset this risk by doing thorough and extensive research of the parts of Paris I plan to visit to determine whether I should be accompanied by another, should avoid the district altogether, or go at certain times of day.  There are certainly certain areas of Paris I plan to avoid altogether, and will always visit districts in Paris with some direction, intent or purpose to minimize risk to myself, or to others.  While there are no direct benefits to research subjects, either the deceased or the living informants, I do hope that this study will give credence to a marginalized area of study within the field of American Studies.  Though my study can make no large or significant difference within my field, I hope it will be a stepping stone to an understanding I hold of the American Experience, but particularly the American Experience abroad.

Human Subjects (IRB) approval

*Forthcoming

on "Helping, Fixing, Serving"

I loved the ideas presented in this reading by Rachel Remen, the difference between helping, fixing, and serving.  To merely "help" someone is to see them as weak, when you try to "fix" something you see someone as broken, but when you "serve" you see them as whole, and deserving of strengthening, or I'd like to add, see yourself as deserving of strengthening, which is why you spend the time to serve at all.

But sometimes people aren't strong, and sometimes they are broken, and so what do you do then?  I'm thinking of times in my life when I was most certainly in need of healing, and usually no one came around to help me with the process.  If we're talking about a Field Study, I'm aware of the point this reading is trying to make, and I'm aware that it isn't our place to assume that we are the ones who can strengthen, or "fix" others.  I think that's a good assumption to make because to see something in need of fixing is to see something broken, and many an unbroken cultures have been "fixed" to their and the worlds' detriment.  I don't even begin to think that the relationships I will have with people in the Field will be of any great benefit to them.

But, to me, I think there is great potential.

I think every being is in great need of healing.  Nothing particularly traumatic has ever happened to me, but I live in trauma every day.  I've been profoundly hurt.  I've been left bleeding, figuratively speaking.  And I don't think it's wrong for someone to see me bleeding and come to help me along as the wound heals.  Or, in that case, when we see a wrong being done to someone, our own beliefs should  never get in the way.  How many times has someone been hurting me, and someone could have said something, stood up for me, helped, but they didn't, afraid it would offend, afraid it would be misconstrued, afraid of being hurt themselves.  That's fair.  But fear should never get in the way of doing right.  This reminds me of a scripture, Hebrews 2:15 saying that Christ would come "and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

This scripture, the first time I consciously read it, screamed at me "The Holocaust."  It was the 20th century when this evil happened, when this profound lack of humanity took place.  The Holocaust.  But people were so afraid of death that they were "all their lifetime subject to bondage" which really probably isn't too much better than death.  I can't say that death is better than bondage because I don't think that's necessarily true.  I think it depends on the death, it depends on the bondage, it depends on the person, and it depends on the hope at the end of the road.  But I do think that we can't let fear, no matter how small a matter, bind us to silence while others suffer, no matter how small we perceive the suffering.

For this reason, I think our presence can heal people we don't know are hurt or in need of healing.  What I mean to say, is that we can make a profound difference in the lives of individuals, like Remen mentioned about the woman to treated her as a human being, who spent time on her, rather than treating her like a patient.  I think if we operate under the assumption that no one needs to be fixed, or aided out of weakness or brokenness, but instead assume that everyone is deserving of our respect, our time, and our care, we are "serving" and maybe doing a little healing at the same time.

In tenth grade I had a close friend hurt me rather badly.  She didn't stay around to watch the hurt, and certainly didn't stick around to try to mend the hurt.  But that year I met someone who probably didn't notice I was hurting, but spent time on me, treated me as whole, and through him I became whole again.  He has always treated me that way, as a whole person, even when he himself has hurt me.  This can be damaging sometimes, for someone who cuts into you without noticing and then treats you as if you are unhurt, but the point of the matter is that because he treats me as whole, I know I will be again, someday.  And that's why I don't think that helping, fixing and serving are wholly separate.  I think they are all one thing but three ways of going about doing it and only one of them can be done with humility.

Having said all this, however, I understand the point being made, and I emphatically agree that we need the point to get through to our heart.  I like what Remen says about service, that when we "help" it is our strength that helps anothers' weakness.  But when we "serve" it is our limitations, our wounds, and our darkness' which we draw on to be of comfort and to help us understand the people around us.

Ethics of History

"There are different kinds of love and each, according to the Fitz, is never like the other." - Rachel's ofdeerfolk

Um.  So, I totally found a source on the Ethics of History (not the History of Ethics), and I kind of want to give this some more thought, and also I mentioned today in class that it'd be a good post to write about.  So here goes it.

As indicated by my annotated source for Wednesday, this source has a chapter that outlines the three responsibilities of a historian: 1.) to be "advocates of collective memory and responsible for its order."  2.) to be "responsible for the future insofar as it is a matter of their representation of the past." and 3.) to be "responsible for taking over the heritage of the past," doing "justice to the people of the past and..." coming "to terms with crimes and horrors which belong to this heritage" (Carr 197).

I love this idea.

I wish I were a historian.  Also, history is not dead!  And I like the idea of being an advocate of the collective memory, responsible for its order.  I think that means not only uncovering lost truths, but learning and holding on to known truths so it passes through the ages.  This is why I want to learn about these people who played music and lived in Paris, because their experience was also an American one and I don't want it to be forgotten, but I also don't want it to go unnoticed.  I think there are ethics to not letting history be forgotten.  But I also think there are ethics to being expansive and open-minded about the history that really is, and never making a decision.

"The time to make up your mind about people is never." - The Philadelphia Story

I would add, no matter how long they've been dead, you should always take in new information, ESPECIALLY if it will change the way you see a human being.

But I also look at this history in a very real way as my responsibility to the future.  I like the idea of the past reflecting onto the future.

I think the biggest relationship to ethics, however, is in the 3rd point: being responsible for taking over the heritage of the past, doing justice to the people of the past and coming to terms with crimes and horrors which belong to this heritage.  I believe this is important because it implies staying away from the interpretations of history done by others, and making your own decisions.  It means staying away from the stereotypes or decisions people made about others in the past to interpret history at this time and place.  We do this particularly with the horrors of war where we refuse to teach some of the worst parts of history.  But ethically, it is important not to dredge up old hurts, but to see people in the context of those hurts, and when dealing with history I think its particularly important not to color things in a rainbow of goodness for it is much too hard to understand people, their motivations or their intentions if we forget the trauma they went through or the challenges they faced.  As an example, I think it would be ethically wrong to portray the 20s as a time of great fun, new ideas, liberal lives, and wonderful pervading ideals of equality and love for all men.  Sure we remember the flappers and the speakeasies, the great clothes, and the freedom from tradition and strictures.  But it's important to remember also that there were race riots, horrible acts of violence, overspending and reckless living that led to the Great Depression, the racketeering, the murders, scandals, the breakdown of familial relationships, and the oversimplifying of the issues that pervaded the time period.  I think it is far more ethical to make educated guesses about people living at the time when they are taken in the context of the trauma, "crimes and horrors which belong to [their] heritage."

I think there are incredible ethics to writing and representing and learning history.  I think it means endless reading and research, open-mindedness, and a willingness to take all stories into account as possibly true, while checking sources to confirm it.