Studying the Anonymization of Publications in Social Sciences – ETAPSS

The project will study the forms and impact of confidentiality and anonymity preservation standards on the ways of writing research in social science journals in France. It will examine how various disciplinary communities manage a notorious contradictory injunction, although little systematically studied: administer evidence of what is being put forward in the articles – which involves optimizing the preservation of the accuracy of the information collected – without risking harm to the respondents by risking disclosing their identity or sensitive aspects of their lives – which On the other hand, it involves reducing the accuracy of the information on the groups and people investigated or obtaining their consent. The way in which this dilemma is solved has an impact on the orientations of the methods and objects of research, through what may or may not be said in the publications. This question is particularly relevant in the context of Open Science. We propose to move away from globalizing conceptions, blind to disciplinary and methodological specificities, by contrasting several disciplinary sets of social sciences – anthropology and ethnology, economics, epidemiology or public health, social geography, linguistics, political science, information and communication sciences, sociology and demography. The case of France will be enlightened by a comparison with the United Kingdom, the United States or Canada, contexts marked by an anteriority of the effects of the dynamics of Open Science. In order to capture a possible evolution, the research will be conducted with some historical depth, going back at least to the early 2000s. The project will be conducted from a sample of over 100 journals. Two approaches will be articulated: an objectification of practices of anonymization or collection of consents embedded in articles, via the use of text mining models to be able to annotate tens of thousands of articles; an exploration of the modes of appropriation and implementation of these normative requirements in the journals studied, ia sending a questionnaire to journals and conducting about fifty interviews with members of the editorial boards of journals and authors of articles. The results of the project can be used to create “toolboxes” in which various actors (researchers, journals, editorial platforms, professional associations) can draw to better explain their positioning on this issue, or to feed the reflection on the anonymization of research data.