ABSTRACT
Drawing on my time as Director of Research, this chapter describes collective efforts made within the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University in response to three different processes that emerged to control the way researchers relate to their research materials: the invention of a bureaucratic instrument called the Data Management Plan, the issuance of national guidelines on Scientific Integrity for the behavioural and social sciences and the passing of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation in Europe. This chapter reflects on how anthropologists can position themselves when faced with data management requirements that stem from very alien (to anthropologists) notions of what “data” is and how research should be done. While the case described here is specific to the Netherlands (and Europe), similar dynamics exist anywhere that anthropologists have to navigate their own sense of research ethics, the law and university policies – each of which may lead to different conclusions about what the “ethical” course of action is in the field. I draw on examples from my own experience of doing research and making films among, with and about social movements to illustrate the kinds of contradictions that these conflicting data morality frameworks can generate for anthropologists
