Ethnographic Observation In An Adoration Chapel?

[Gabriela]

I’m taking a qualitative methods course this (summer) semester and I have to do an “observation” project. Think anthropologists out in the field. I can pick my own site. I want to go to the Adoration chapel, but my professor thinks people have an expectation of privacy in a chapel. Frankly I don’t see what privacy’s got to do with anything, since an ethnographic observation doesn’t focus on any one individual, but on what people do generally, as a group so to speak, in a particular place.

 

Knowing that, I personally wouldn’t care if someone sat off to the side of a chapel and observed what was going on in there while I was praying, so long as I didn’t know they were doing it. (If I did know, it would distract me from prayer, but I wouldn’t be offended or feel my privacy was violated.) The problem is: If I’m anomalous and most people DO have an expectation of privacy in a chapel and would feel offended or violated if they found out they were being observed (as a group, not individually), then there’s an ethical issue with doing an observation in an Adoration chapel.

 

So: Would you feel offended/violated if someone observed you (and everyone else in the room, without your knowledge) in an Adoration chapel?

[chrysostom]

EDIT:  seems like you re-posted in the correct forum, Open Mic, so I'll re-reply over there.  :)

Edited May 27, 2014 by chrysostom

[Gabriela]

I put it in here, too, since some VSers don't venture into the Open Mic, and chances are they're the ones on Phatmass who go to Adoration the most!

[Benedictus]

It's a public place. You're only observing, no interaction or deception. So I'd not be that bothered.

[maximillion]

We're all observed, openly or otherwise, all the time, in chapel and elsewhere.......

 

 

I wouldn't worry about it.

 

 

I would have a statement prepared in case anyone gets curious about you and what you are doing though......

[Gabriela]

I would have a statement prepared in case anyone gets curious about you and what you are doing though......

 

Yeah, that's standard practice! :)

[Catherine Therese]

Thanks for posting here - I'm one of those very people who rarely ventures into Open Mic.

 

In terms of whether people in actual fact would be bothered or not - the others have summed that up already - provided they don't know about it, they're fine with it. 

 

The tricky part is that, because this is intended to be a formal, qualitative study, and by virtue of your proposed research problem, it is a human study, there is the need to be able to justify the research methodology to an ethics panel. (Mind you, my experience is primarily with the Australian Higher Ed system, and whilst I've done some college study in the United States, it was at undergraduate level with no formal research... so perhaps things work a little differently here?) 

 

Now I'm guessing that if this subject is a qualitative methods subject where you're just learning how to do qualitative research, then you won't ACTUALLY have to put a submission into a ethics review panel; however, I'm also guessing that your professor will nevertheless include in the grading criteria the need to cover your bases where ethical considerations are concerned. Even if you don't have to submit to a panel, you'd be aiming for such a standard as would be approved by such a panel were it required, surely?

 

The others have mentioned that it is a public place - yes. But your professor also raises a valid point with the reasonable expectation for privacy - some people bring their troubles to Our Lord at Adoration and kneel there crying their eyes out, for example. Would a person with that level of distress be OK with their grief being the subject of an anthropological study? Hard to know and I suspect there'd be a range of different responses to that, but worth questioning. 

 

So I don't have "the answer" for you - but on the basis of the above I tend to think its worth being very careful about this and to discuss it further with your professor before committing to the project you've suggested. 

[AnneLine]

That's what I was trying to figure out how to say -- the ethics piece.

 

 I think you would have to post you are going to do this between certain hours or some such stuff...   At least they were VERY emphatic about it when I had to do similar things in my counseling program.   People have the right to opt out of something like this.... for exactly the reason that CatherineTherese said.. it could be very traumatic if they found out they HAD been observed.   We had to literally get signed permission slips for everything.

 

In fact... one of my teachers had to get signed permission slips from US before we did a particular project in our counseling program because it ran the risk of stirring up 'stuff' in the people doing the project!  

 

So I dunno.....

 

It is a fascinating idea, however....  and it sounds as if people might not really mind.   Talk about it with your prof.  I would stay away but it sounds like I might be in the minority....

 

Edited May 28, 2014 by AnneLine