praxis

See also our study page

1. Our our code of conduct

2. Our formal research protocols

research protocol for personal narrative interviews
&
research protocol for public actor interviews

These are formal documents prepared for several purposes:

~ First, writing the protocols forced us to think about and answer for ourselves all the questions that an Institutional Review Board (IRB) would ask. We had to clarify our procedures with precision. The Texas After Violence Project is independent, free-standing, unattached and unbeholden to any institution, so there is no IRB for us to report to. Nevertheless, we want to be as strict with ourselves as other researchers must be. We want to hold ourselves to the highest standards, even if no one is going to force those standards on us. So we went through a practice IRB exercise.

~ Second, the personal narrative protocol (which we wrote first) formed the basis for our brochure for potential interview subjects.

~ Third, the protocols help us check our actual practice against what we say we are doing. It helps keep us on the right track; it helps keep us from getting sloppy; it helps us from agreeing to do things that we've already thought about and decided were bad ideas.

~ Fourth, these documents serves as a basis for an individual researcher (a student, for example) who wishes to work with us to write her own specific proposal for submission to the IRB at her institution.

Exceptions to protocols: We have conducted two interviews that did not conform to our own protocols. The Texas After Violence Project conducted these directed interviews at the request of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, and they specifically address mental illness.

3. Our operating procedures

The following pages serve as as an online "handbook" (or even "employee manual," though none of us are employees!) for everything we do at the Texas After Violence Project. They're meant primarily for interviewers, videographers, video editors, transcribers, & everyone else who works with the Texas After Violence Project. Other people are also welcome to read this material. (We would love to hear from people engaged in similar or overlapping work!) Please send your suggestions, comments and questions to info@texasafterviolence.org.

Many of these materials are based on the original Texas After Violence Project Oral History Handbook by Antony Cherian and Mark Westmoreland, Seed Documentary Cooperative, prepared for our February, 2008 training, and the revision of that handbook by Antony Cherian and Gabe Solis, Fall 2008. Copies are available at the office.

what to do ahead of time - well before the day of the interview

what to do in the day or two before the interview - interviewer & videographer

what to take to the interview - interviewer & videographer

setting up for the interview - interviewer & videographer

videographers - setting up for & recording the interview (coming, will be based on the Westmoreland, Cherian, & Solis revised handbook)

interviewers: what to do at the interview

interviewers: what not to do at the interview

interviewer & videographer team: what to do immediately after the interview

what to do after the interview:
1) importing the tape (to come)
2) Final Cut Pro to DVD

transcribing the interview: "Yours is not to complete the task, but neither are you free to abstain from it." (Rabbi Tarfon)

checking the interview transcription against the tape (to come)

revising the transcript following the narrator's review (to come)

consent to be interviewed form

donation of interview materials form

consent to web publication form

preparing interview for posting at Human Rights Documentation Initiative (these instructions are in process)

self-care