For me, the personal relationships with participants lie at the heart of the issue of informed consent, which means being clear and honest about myself with others and maintaining a sensitivity to people's level of comfort and discomfort. As well, my awareness of the relative power and privilege of my position was also important, as will be discussed in a later chapter.

One of the students, who consented to a non-tape recorded interview and chose a pseudonym, did not give consent to being observed. At that time I did not explore further with the student what "no observation" meant. During my fieldwork, I did not remain continually and consciously aware of this request for no observation. During post-fieldwork analysis I was abruptly reminded of this request when I reread the signed consent form and my note at the top - No Observation. My observations of interactions and events at the Centre had included this student and there were key incidents during my fieldwork in which this student was central. To deal with this situation, I did not identify this student directly when describing the events and interactions that included this person.

In retrospect, I see that the informed consent that I set up consisted of choices that were not fully explored - specifically the choice to not be involved in the research, to not be observed or to participate at different levels. The issues around informed consent are complex and require an ongoing questioning of the process of negotiation between researcher and participants, since consent is such an important process of building relationships in research.

Relationships

Since a major component of ethnographic research is building trust, I was very conscious of the importance of getting to know people on their terms, and of actively listening and allowing for time to complete my research agenda. An excerpt from my field notes describes this process with a student who had expressed his nervousness about the research process:

Rene sits by the computer, doesn't seem to be involved in anything so when he swivels on his chair and catches my eye, I go over and ask if he'd have time to go over the consent form. He looks at the clock (2pm), "Oh I'm not sure, I have to be somewhere at 2:30'. I wait, then tell him maybe we could just start in on it and he could say whenever he needs to go. Rene talks first about his doubts, then about a book he read about a woman who went around to many different literacy centres and talked to people and how she did a good job in helping others know about different programs because she'd share what she knew with each program she visited, letting them know what was going on in other places. We discuss why I'm doing my research and my hopes and plans to share the Centre with other teachers and students. He is reassured that he's not being asked to write a report or fill out any forms - I show him where he can write his signature at the end of the form, that we just need to read it over together first. He reads it himself out loud, we talk about it every few paragraphs or sections. We get as far as page two by 2:30, so we arrange to finish up on Monday when I'm back (FN 03/05/01).