In my first semester as an assistant professor, I submitted a protocol to the IRB for an ethnographic and autoethnographic study about art and community. The goal was to do a group ethnography and work with my students to write and collect narratives about a community art installation. The students would do thematic analysis and report their findings in their final semester papers four short months later. The students were excited about working with a community artist, and so was I. I submitted the protocol on behalf of the class and started waiting. I called to check about the status in October and was told revisions were needed. In November, I learned the study was approved. By that time, the semester was almost over, I shifted the course’s focus, and the hopes that I would be able to work with my students on this project disappeared.
This began an important...
University of California Press