Participatory Research in Mesoamerica and Data Protection in Europe (and Elsewhere)

This essay examines the tensions between participatory ethnographic research methods and newly emerging legal regimes of data protection and privacy. Drawing on the example of recent grant-funded research in Mexico, the essay charts how the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation impedes the practices and ethos of participatory research in significant ways. In particular, new legal requirements about data collection, access and storage, and "the right to be forgotten," effectively preclude integrating community members into research planning or data collection. As countries around the world move toward more robust and comprehensive data protection and privacy laws, the issues raised in this essay are likely to become more pressing in many different research contexts in the future.