Fostering habits of care: Reframing qualitative data sharing policies and practices
Fostering habits of care: Reframing qualitative data sharing policies and practices
This article argues that navigating the formalized, regulated and institutionalized data sharing landscape is challenging for researchers tasked with making qualitative data available for re-use. Archiving empirical material has progressively become a requirement enshrined in the policies of UK research institutions. Yet, how qualitative researchers feature – as data (co)creators and curators – within a process governed largely by quantitative data management strategies remains undocumented. Using examples from the ESRC Timescapes initiative, this article argues that to advance ethical practice in qualitative secondary analysis (QSA), data sharing policies and practices need to be re-framed to respect, value and care for the particularities of qualitative data and the emotional, intellectual and temporal investments made by qualitative researchers working in an increasingly pressurized Higher Education (HE) environment. Accordingly, ideas from the ethics of care literature are employed to propose areas where ‘habits of care’, attuned to the needs of qualitative researchers and data, can be fostered.
Data Sharing, Qualitative research, Regulation, data archiving, data production, ethics of care, habits of care, qualitative secondary analysis, research careers
Weller, Susie
6ad1e079-1a7c-41bf-8678-bff11c55142b
1 February 2022
Weller, Susie
6ad1e079-1a7c-41bf-8678-bff11c55142b
Weller, Susie
(2022)
Fostering habits of care: Reframing qualitative data sharing policies and practices.
Qualitative Research.
(doi:10.1177/14687941211061054).
Abstract
This article argues that navigating the formalized, regulated and institutionalized data sharing landscape is challenging for researchers tasked with making qualitative data available for re-use. Archiving empirical material has progressively become a requirement enshrined in the policies of UK research institutions. Yet, how qualitative researchers feature – as data (co)creators and curators – within a process governed largely by quantitative data management strategies remains undocumented. Using examples from the ESRC Timescapes initiative, this article argues that to advance ethical practice in qualitative secondary analysis (QSA), data sharing policies and practices need to be re-framed to respect, value and care for the particularities of qualitative data and the emotional, intellectual and temporal investments made by qualitative researchers working in an increasingly pressurized Higher Education (HE) environment. Accordingly, ideas from the ethics of care literature are employed to propose areas where ‘habits of care’, attuned to the needs of qualitative researchers and data, can be fostered.
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Accepted/In Press date: 4 October 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 February 2022
Published date: 1 February 2022
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Economic and Social Research Council National Centre for Research Methods funded the research on which this paper draws [ES/L008351/1]. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ‘Re-visioning the regulation of data archiving and sharing in the Social Sciences’ international symposium, Linköping University, Sweden, 23-24 March 2017. The symposium was supported financially by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Swedish foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences [Grant F16-1154:1].
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
Keywords:
Data Sharing, Qualitative research, Regulation, data archiving, data production, ethics of care, habits of care, qualitative secondary analysis, research careers
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 452756
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/452756
ISSN: 1468-7941
PURE UUID: 6b55dcc0-f6a2-4e6b-9d4b-5c0d8712db7d
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Date deposited: 17 Dec 2021 18:20
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 06:58
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Author:
Susie Weller
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