Research redux, from index cards to e-mails

As I continue to make contacts here in New Mexico, I'm struck by how the research process has completely changed even in my life-time, working from index cards (as recently as 10 years ago) to the e-mails I get now from folks who would have been, at one time, "informants" without digital access...it makes it easier to stay in touch, but in other ways it takes the fun out of the process if I don't have to drive on a dirt road for an hour or four to get to their homes. But I realize this is just pith-helmet research nostalgia...and I'm over it. Perhaps the indirect result of this overall change is that the stakes for research ethics have also been raised - our results are easier to find, easier to question, if not easier to contest (yet). But that is a welcome change.

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