Nowadays the encounter between researcher and participant in research takes place more frequently on the Internet – in a new space, which on the one hand is a complex construct of words, sounds and images, and which on the other hand is created by people interacting in various ways. This new domain, explored in many ways by anthropologists and other qualitative researchers, is taken into account, especially in foreign publications, when professional ethics is considered. In the authors’ opinion, the Polish anthropological community still suffers from the lack of deeper reflection on the challenges posed by research on the Internet. The purpose of this paper is to present various approaches towards ethical issues in qualitative research on the Web and to highlight the areas of dispute that arise as a result of the adoption of different ethical positions, focusing mainly on the problems of informed consent, privacy and harm.
The authoress describes some difficulties concerning doing research on contemporary Polish religiosity. Since there are many phenomena occurring throughout the country (e. g. the cult of Our Lady of Czestochowa, popularity of 'Radio Maryja' or pilgrimages to the most famous sanctuaries) it is a kind of a challenge to find a fresh field for research. Happily, Polish anthropologists beloved some regions of Poland that they used to describe widely and frequently because of their richness of data what allows to conduct a fruitful study. One of such regions is Kurpie (central Poland) chosen also by the authoress of the article as a research field for a group of students of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Warsaw University. The text is simultaneously a preface for a set of articles being a summary of a two-year research on Polish religiosity in Kurpie. It introduces subjects of following articles showing how nationwide phenomena are interpreted in the local context and how some local issues constitute an alternative for the 'global' ones or how they absorb the 'global' giving it a local shade.
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