human subjects my ass

[forbiddencharm]

so i'm attempting to fill out the human subjects protocol so i can get my dissertation project cleared by the irb. why, you may ask? i have no fucking idea.

every single person i will be studying has been dead for no less than 8,000 years, and in many cases 9,000. how the hell can i possibly violate their privacy and/or rights? i couldn't even if i wanted to, since i don't know enough about them or what they might have considered culturally sensitive-- no hidden sexual orientation, illegal behavior, shameful diseases. not only do i not know their names, i don't even know what language they spoke! they are not related to the current inhabitants of the area, who recognize that and thus don't care what behaviors are attributed to them. and, of course, they're already dead, so i can't cause them physical harm. in the process of this research, i will not be photographing, interviewing, recording (video or audio), surveying, or otherwise taking data, observations, personal information or indeed anything at all from a single living research subject. i don't even have an outreach program because the site has that covered.

i completely agree with the concept of the human subjects protocol and irb review for anyone who actually works with human subjects. the dangers are far too high, and people far too sucky to allow unregulated experimentation, since there are still problems even with the IRB in place. but i work with dead people- 90 percent of the questions i am answering n/a, and the other ten percent are just a longer and more complex version of n/a. why are they making me waste their time like this? they have hundreds of these applications to go through, one would think they would prefer not to have to look at those that are so patently absurd. it seems likely that spending too much time with proposals like mine would make the board more likely to skim the ones where it actually matters.

Comments

[maric23.livejournal.com]

When I was an undergrad, I was working on a project focusing on self definitions of anthropology by the faculty/practitioners. Needless to say, HSRB had to have paperwork filled out... Some of the categories were... amusing. "What provisions have been made for psychological trauma resulting from the research?" Honestly, if a Uni's professors will be traumatized by someone asking them what their field is, they have far more serious problems. It was fun. Didn't realize Arkeo got caught up in it though. I do remember being told that typically they tended to ignore anthropology HSRB material because most of the standard requests were contrary to field methods, etc. No similar, "Its 8000 year archaeology" flag on the top of the application is possible? Worse comes to worse, you'll probably manage to amuse some IRB member.

[johanna-b.livejournal.com]

Wow. And I thought that most of the stuff on those applications didn't apply to me.

[piratelemur.livejournal.com]

That's not the dumbest thing I've heard this year, but it sure is close. Isn't there a statute of limitations you could invoke? :)