Consent To Record Charity Aienobe Asekharen

In working with a group of young people, generating conversation comes in different forms but all are tied to ongoing consent. The picture shows how we negotiated to gain consent for the participants’ choice of video or audio recording. While some groups I worked with were comfortable with video recording, others opted for audio. On that particular day, I had only one audio recorder with me. This meant that at certain points I had to extend the recorder by hand to ensure that what was said was well captured. This ensured that I didn’t go back after a day of working with my participants with poor recording or worse, an empty audio recorder. In accommodating their preference, I was able to verbally capture their thoughts while we found some fun in the process of speaking into the recorder like celebs being interviewed.

The picture was taken during fieldwork in a public school in southern Nigeria. All participants in the picture consented to pictures being taken without exposing their faces.