IRB와 구술사 연구윤리 : 한민족다문화 협력적 구술생애사 연구 사례를 중심으로

초록

The Bio-Ethics and Safety Act of South Korea that came into effect on February 2, 2013, requires the establishment of an Institutional Review Board (IRB)—which will review and regulate all human subject researches —in educational, research, and medical institutions that employ researchers conducting human subject researches which involve interactions such as physical intervention, communication, and interpersonal contact with a living individual. As a result, qualitative researches including oral history are defined as human subject researches and are subject to review and regulation by the IRBs dominated by biomedical and behavioral sciences. Nevertheless, qualitative researches including oral history cannot be subjects of review and regulation by the IRB in its current state. The reason for this is that oral history, not to mention anthropology and sociology, belongs to the discipline of critical studies. For example, oral history does not regard living individuals as the subject of research but as research participants and collaborators. While it is important to illustrate that oral history as an academic discipline has its own robust research ethics, it is also necessary to explain why IRB and the research ethics of oral history are incompatible. As such, this paper seeks to briefly examine the inconvenient relationships between the IRB and the Oral History Association in the U.S. and discuss the issues related to oral history researches and research ethics in South Korea through the author’s oral history research case.

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