Steering Clear of the Rocks: A Look at the Current State of Oral History Ethics in the Digital Age

In recent conversations about ethics in oral history, most of the topics tend to fall into two main categories—legislated or voluntary. Interactions with Institutional Review Boards and the nature and content of consent and release forms tend to fall into the former, being controlled by legal constraints. Some of the more complex ethical issues often belong to the “voluntary” group, however, as they are driven largely by individual and institutional consciences rather than by hard-and-fast written guidelines. These dilemmas tend to be more situational in nature, and they include privacy concerns, responsibility to narrators, and accountability to communities in the new digital era. This article discusses some of the ways in which these ethical quandaries are being addressed, as well as some new considerations that are currently emerging.