Privilege and Practice in Social Science Research: [Rejoinder

Abstract

I am grateful to each of the scholars who wrote commentaries on From the Field to the Courthouse: Should Social Science Research Be Privileged? The research experiences they describe enrich and enhance the discussion of the appropriateness of a scholarly research privilege. The commentaries further emphasize several difficult issues both in particular research contexts and in general. In the following response, I reflect on two striking themes from the commentaries and then address the specific critiques raised about the question of establishing a qualified scholarly research privilege. The understanding that social science research necessarily implicates an intervention by the researcher in the social context of study runs throughout the commentaries as an important if not organizing and central theme. Kathleen Blee begins, for example, by making the distinguishing observation that unlike the confidential relationships between doctors and patients, lawyers and clients, or spiritual advisors and penitents, a social science researcher both initiates confidential relationships with informantparticipants and benefits from the information obtained through confidential communications. It is for this reason, this interplay of initiating and benefiting, that Blee concludes on the cautionary note that we need to be careful not to increase protection around social scientists at the cost of decreasing it for our informants (Blee 1999, 997). This consideration is a major part of the critique of the Nejelski-Peyser shield statute proposal as well.