interviews in public place can't be anonymous?

[gazzellemylove]

PhD student here. I've been told by the ethics committee that I can't do face to face interviews in a public place because this means they can't be anonymous. ( I can not say I will therefore do them in a private space because, for various reasons, I know they will not give approval.) . Is this standard?

I'm not sure what they mean by anonymous. What is the difference between public and private?

@timeforakinderworld I followed university guidance and said i will do interviews in a public space - a library cafe - as oppose to a participant's home ect.

They said this means the interviews can't be anonymous. (I have to anonymise my interview data of course).

This is a ludicrous interpretation of privacy and anonymity- it takes away people's right to choose to participate! As long as you are up front I cannot see the issue with this. People can be observed in public without consent! I would say you will inform participants of the location of the interviews and make sure they understand someone could see them and connect this to their transcript (whoever would do that!) Privacy and anonymity are up to participants to choose if there's a reason not to use the default of anonymity- for example, people who want to take part in very personal interviews to honour a loved one who is dead often find it very offensive to have, say, their son's name replaced by a random name. Interviews in private spaces can carry a lone researcher risk so it's always a question of weighing up the risks- as long as you have informed participants then this option offers the best safety for you and for them and is just standard operating procedure!!! Where would they like you to do the interviews?

To reply to their amendment, I would ask for their guidance on where to conduct the interviews. 1000's of interview studies have been done- there's only two choices, in public, in private, both carry risks. Ask them how to square this (made up in their own head) circle.

Can you do it in a university room?

My experience is that fewer people who aren't used to going to universities want to go to a university to take part in an interview (so, working class groups, mums with childcare). You also have to refund travel. This is a social justice issue so as much part of ethics as anonymity, I'd prefer to include as many people as possible.

On a practical level you may be able to go in a quiet/private part of a library?

I mean the university thing might not matter for an experiment where background/demographics aren' timportant, but for social science interviews, it often is.

Thanks for the advice!

I can't ask participants to come to my university - they are concentrated in a city at the other end of the country. I was planning on going there to conduct the interviews.

The only thing I can think of is saying I will do interviews on Skype, but it just seems bizarre to me.

I cannot find any official guidance on anonymisation of qualitative research which says you should conduct interviews in private space.

I know this area well and I haven't seen any. I think it is a matter of consent to let people know where and when interviews will take place and ask them to consent on that basis. People are able to consent to this, that's what consent is!

Honestly, I would ask for a precedent for this decision, I'll be surprised if there is one- how would anyone know you were interviewing anyway if you were two people having a chat and you weren't in any way advertising what you were doing? How would that then get connected to their anonymized transcript?

If this were the case, no ethnographic work would ever take place!

Is there a reason you can’t do them in a private space? Many libraries have rooms you could hire or you could seek to partner with a local charity or other organisation who would let you use a spare office.

I think interviews in public places can be challenging for lots of reasons (being unable to speak freely if say a family member or partner accompanies then, issues of inadvertent disclosure, and probably most significant, poor quality audio recordings). I would avoid it unless I had no other option.

Did they explain their decision? I've never seen this rule implemented in this way before. When I conducted research interviews they were allowed to take place in a private room at the university but see that's not possible for you. Could you look into local libraries, or even ask the local university if they would allow you to book a room?

if you are discussing sensitive topics, then people won't want to discuss that in a cafe or public space.

I agree that booking a meeting room in a shared office space or library would be ideal. that would mean there are other people about for safety / security but there will also be enough privacy.

Of course, if this is just a 10 min chat about what brand of baked beans people like to buy, then a public space should be fine.

I did interviews in parks and cafes and was never told that they couldn't be anonymous.

Anonymity isn't about your participant being anonymous to you and whoever might be around at the time the interview takes place. It's about you making sure that you anonymised their data (names and identifiable details) in your findings. So it really doesn't matter where it takes place. Even if someone walks over to you during your interview and says 'hi X, what are you doing here in Staffordshire library' it doesn't matter, you just dont include that in your findings (and exclude it or black it out of your transcripts, if you plan on including transcripts in your appendix that is)