Ethics in Anthropology:
Public Presentation of Anthropological Material
Anne Erickson
Molly Hayes
Stephan Sabatke
Rebecca Vargo
Jennifer Wall
Senior Seminar
Spring 2001
Professor L. Belote
What shapes the public perception of anthropology, and how do the ethical
choices made by individual anthropologists affect this perception? There is a
mythical quality to the tales of the inevitable Indiana Jones questions
that arise when one announces an association with anthropology, and almost every
anthropologist tells them, with a greater or lesser degree of exaggeration. The
Leakeys are well known in the general public, due perhaps as much to their
dynastic qualities and connection to primatologists Jane Goodall and Diane
Fossey as to a popular understanding of their works. Margaret Mead was the
anthropologist who took anthropology out of academia and fixed it in the view of
the American public, and her work in this role has not been surpassed to this
day. Most Americans, however, are first exposed to anthropology in a setting
they do not necessarily associate with anthropology: museums, in particular
historical museums, but also art museums and collections maintained at national
parks and historic sites.
Our project set out to examine the ethical issues involved in the presentation
of anthropological material to the public, and to consider the role of public
activism by anthropologists. We began with the American Anthropological
Association’s Code of Ethics, which, along with other ethical codes, has been
the focus of discussions of ethics in anthropology during the 1990s, culminating
in 2000 with the publication of Darkness in El Dorado and the
accompanying debates. Our research included literature on the history of public
anthropology, historical examinations of ethics in anthropology, the role of
ethical codes in museums, and considerations of individual anthropologist’s
presentation of their work. We also interviewed professors of anthropology and
practicing anthropologists about their views on, and experiences with, ethics in
the presentation of their work to the public. As a group and in class we
discussed specific ethical dilemmas, and the reasoning behind the choices we
believe we would make if faced with such ethical choices.
Historical Perspective on Anthropology and the Public1
Making materials accessible and popular has been essential throughout the
history of anthropology. Tyler, Malinowski, Frazer, Levi-Strauss and others
sought to express their political, social and theoretical views to a popular
audience, and saw this as a means to ensure the survival of the discipline.
Anthropology’s beginnings in France, Great Britain and America were similar in
that there was a gathering of professionals who were not anthropologists per
se, but who studied anthropological themes. The discipline’s first
“professionals” emerged from these intellectuals and the curators of
ethnographic collections (MacClancy 1996: 7). From the early 1800s through the
1940s, British and American work was commonly written for literary weeklies and
monthlies. Disseminating material in this manner can be viewed as a method of
popularizing anthropology within the academy, since the main audience was the
educated public (MacClancy 1996: 40). In France, material was written for a
general audience, not just the educated minority. In his essay, “Popularizing
Anthropology,” Jeremy MacClancy gives the example of the popular “Terre
Humaine” collection from the 1950s:
We were the first to put top people and supposedly lower-rank people on the same
literary level...We have taken rural thought out of the university museum and
folklore studies in which it was bogged down. Le Cheval d’Orgueil...the
autobiography of a Breton peasant...showed townspeople that peasants were not
the idiots they though them to be, but bearers of complex thought. And then,
every Frenchman discovered that he had in his father or grandfather some peasant
ancestry. The French intelligentsia discovered its own mental, religious and
mythic substrate in European peasant civilization...” (in Benthal 1987: 8-9).
Wendy James’ essay, “Anthropology’s dramatis personae,” states
that the public presentation of anthropological material allows for “Western
self-reflection” when presented as an Us/Them or We/The Other type of theme.
For example: Malinowski’s writing on the Trobrianders reflected Freudian
theory; Evans-Pritchard’s book on Zande magic challenged the European
rationale; and Turnbull’s work on the Ik questioned “the reader’s
conscience and the fragility of all culture” (1996: 85). However, space and
time constraints may require primary ethnographic material to be edited,
removing much of the content and context. According to James, such abridgement
meant “not only sacrificing a lot of detail, it meant sacrificing a good deal
of the internal dialectic of interpretation” (1996: 89). Even personal
interpretations of scholarly work is limited to the understanding of the reader,
as MacClancy demonstrates with a quote: “Ever read The Golden Bough?
No, too long for you. Shorter version though. Ought to read it. Proves our
sexual habits are pure convention -- like wearing a black tie with a dinner
jacket” (Chandler 1953: 212-213).
In the late 19th century, the National Museum, America’s first anthropological
institution, displayed exotic exhibits at the World’s Fairs in order to
demonstrate evolution and diversity. Barnum & Baily’s, from 1893 to 1895,
displayed the The Great Ethnological Congress as 74 non-Western people
(MacClancy 1996: 17). Evolution was a hot topic in the late 1800s, and
anthropological debates filled lecture halls and promoted book sales. James
Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, was both famous and financially
successful, and his work influenced such literary elites as Joseph Conrad, Ezra
Pound, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer (MacClancy 1996: 10). Malinowski
shamelessly promoted his ethnographic and theoretical material. He held
seminars, wrote forwards for a variety of books, sat on editorial boards for
progressive journals and debated popular topics in public lectures (MacClancy
1996: 13).
Alan Campbell wrote in his essay “Tricky Tropes” that there are preconceived
notions about “popular” and “scholarly” writing. Popular writing is for
those who want to promote themselves rather than their ideas, whereas scholarly
writing is for those who wish to promote their ideas and consider it a bonus if
fame follows. If fame was not achieved in the general public, the scholastic
anthropologist could rest comfortably with the idea that their work was probably
too complex and sophisticated for a wider, popular audience to understand (1996:
59-60). However, an anthropological presentation that reaches a wide audience,
both within and without academia -- for example, Eric Hobsbawn’s trilogy on
the Long Century -- without being “esoteric, obscure, specialized,
jargon-laden...It’s a magnificent achievement. It’s the result of
scholarship at its best” (1996: 73)
Ethical Responsibilities in Museums
One of the most common ways that anthropology reaches a public audience is
through museums. Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary defines a museum as
"An institution devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of
objects of lasting interest or value." A museum is a place where the public
can be educated about diverse peoples, cultures, and time periods. For many
people this is their only exposure to this information. For this reason the
museum has a great responsibility to be accurate. The responsibility of
representing diverse peoples and cultures can bring into question many ethical
dilemmas.
Peter van Mensch, in his thesis "Ethics in Museology," lists seven
main ethical responsibilities upon which all museum codes of ethics agree. They
are as follows:
1. Responsibility to the maker (and first user) of the object and his or her
society.
2. Responsibility to the preservation of the information value (including the
aesthetic and emotional values) of the object and its physical and intellectual
accessibility
3. Responsibility to the institute with which the official is associated,
regardless of whether this association is temporary or permanent, paid or
unpaid, or whether the official is employed by the institute or has volunteered
his or her services.
4. Responsibility to those who made the activities possible by financial support
5. Responsibility to colleagues inside and outside the institute concerned,
including professionals associated with non-museum institutes such as academic
researchers.
6. Responsibility to the visitors to permanent and temporary exhibitions and to
participants in other activities.
7. Responsibility to the community as a whole, now and in the future. Many of
these responsibilities are interrelated we will look at a few and give some
examples of how they can be applied (1992: 5).
The first ethical responsibility acknowledges that museums need to take into
consideration the maker and or the people that the object originated from. Any
time an
item is obtained or is going to be displayed the museum has an obligation to
consult the ethnic group or maker and respect their wishes on its exhibition. At
Glensheen museum, a historic mansion in Duluth, the director, William Miller,
acknowledges the importance of keeping up a good relationship with the family
that lived there. Legally there is no obligation, but ethically he feels that
this is important. Before the house was donated to the University of Minnesota
in Duluth, the family took all items of sentimental value. Therefore, anything
that remained was intended to be displayed. The museum is also careful about
issues that are sensitive to the family and chooses not to disclose some of this
information on their tours (Personal Communication April 2001).
When asked whether museums have an obligation to current Native Americans,
Sharon Fodness, an anthropology professor at Central Lakes College involved in
the creation of a museum on campus, answered:
Certainly, the trend has been strongly focused on including, and in fact, giving
priority to, native voices. Given the difficult history of anthropology, I find
it essential that the museum take the role of providing a situation in which
people can tell their own stories, rather than have their lives interpreted by
an outsider who may not know the whole story, or who may skew the story to match
her own cultural assumptions. Additionally, museums must take much greater care
in honoring native beliefs and values (Personal Communication April 2001).
Fodness gives the example of eagle feathers, which are sacred to the Ojibwe.
When the Mille Lacs Indian museum, which is under Minnesota Historical Society
ownership, reopened after remodeling, the band decided not to display sacred
eagle feathers to the public. They instead keep them in a special “sacred
room” available only to certain elders. Fodness remarks, “Though not under
any legal obligation” the museum at Central Lakes college will follow this
policy
as well “because it respects cultural values” (Personal Communication April
2001).
The second responsibility involves the value of an object. Postmodernist
anthropologist James Clifford asserts that removing objects from their
ethnographic contexts distorts the meaning of the objects. He believes that
museums that display objects need to represent the background of the object in
its entirety. He says, "to locate ‘tribal’ peoples in a nonhistorical
time and ourselves in a different, historical time is clearly tendentious and no
longer credible" (Clifford 1988: 322). Museums need to represent the value
of an object in relation to its past as well as its present in order to
understand it. An example he uses is an indigenous piece of art in a
modern art museum. Here it is seen only for its aesthetic beauty, leaving out
the emotional or spiritual ties that could be connected to it. Anthropologist
Denis Dutton gives the example of African art. He says it is "indigenous
intentions, values, descriptions, and constructions which must be awarded
theoretical primacy." If an African carving is intended by its maker to
embody a spirit this is an ascertainable fact about it (Dutton 1995: 334). A
museum has the responsibility to preserve not only the object but also its
aesthetic and emotional values, whatever that may entail.
The fourth responsibility is to the people who give financial support to the
museum. In the case of Glensheen, Miller acknowledges the obligations to the
donors. The museum has to make sure they honor the preferences of where the
donors want the funds applied. They are also obligated to use the money as
intended and be honest about where it goes. (Personal Communication April 2001).
The last two responsibilities have to do with the museum’s direct relationship
to the public. They have the responsibility of keeping exhibitions up, as well
as a responsibility to educate and inform the public. Miller says the
educational component is key at Glensheen. To Miller there is no distinction
between preservation and education. It is important to preserve, but the reason
you preserve is to educate. He remarks that there is not much value in keeping
thing locked up; the value comes in the educational use. On the tour, people
learn about the construction, decorations and adornments of the house and how it
was influenced by the mining and early economic development in Duluth. The
museum recognizes the need and obligation to be honest and portray the house,
family, historical period and politics accurately. As a result of this honesty,
the public is not misinformed.
Ethics: Personal, Public and Professional
The section on Responsibility to the Public may be the only section of the
revised AAA Code of Ethics that imposes fewer duties than its predecessor, the
Statement on Ethics-Principles of Professional Responsibility. The following
excerpt is from the 1971 version:
Anthropologists are also responsible to the public--all presumed consumers of
their professional efforts. To them they owe a commitment to candor and to
truth in the dissemination of their research results and in the statement of
their opinions as students of humanity.
a. Anthropologists should not communicate findings secretly to some and withhold
them from others.
c. In providing professional opinions, anthropologists are responsible not only
for their content but also for integrity in explaining both these opinions and
their bases.
d. As people who devote their professional lives to understanding people, anthropologists
bear a positive responsibility to speak out publicly, both individually and
collectively, on what they know and what they believe as a result of their
professional expertise gained in the study of human beings. That is, they
bear a professional responsibility to contribute to an "adequate definition
of reality" upon which public opinion and public policy may be based (AAA
1971, emphasis added).
Compare this to the full text of the section on Responsibility to the Public in
the 1998 Code of Ethics:
1. Anthropological researchers should make the results of their research
appropriately available to sponsors, students, decision makers, and other non
anthropologists. In so doing, they must be truthful; they are not only
responsible for the factual content of their statements but also must consider
carefully the social and political implications of the information they
disseminate. They must do everything in their power to insure that such
information is well understood, properly contextualized, and responsibly
utilized. They should make clear the empirical bases upon which their reports
stand, be candid about their qualifications and philosophical or political
biases, and recognize and make clear the limits of anthropological expertise. At
the same time, they must be alert to possible harm their information may cause
people with whom they work or colleagues.
2. Anthropologists may choose to move beyond disseminating research results
to a position of advocacy. This is an individual decision, but not an ethical
responsibility (AAA 1998, emphasis added).
Two things changed: emphasis was placed on particular groups within the general
public, rather than “the public” as a whole, and; public advocacy became an
individual choice, not an ethical obligation. Clearly, the idea of what
constitutes ethical behavior in the presentation of anthropological materials is
subject to variation over time.
We spoke with only one anthropologist who would proffer a simple answer to the
question of how ethics is defined: Dr. Mitra Emad, who told us that ethics is
“right and wrong” (Class Lecture April 2001). During her visit to our class,
however, Dr. Emad answered many questions in ways that were pointedly ironic,
indicating that these are complicated issues that cannot be answered succinctly
and universally.2 Most of the
anthropologists we spoke with believe that ethics are personal and, like the
discipline, holistic. Ethics are not something to be taken out of context and
defined, as ethical decisions are made almost constantly, and the choices one
might make are dependent on many variables. Another UMD professor, Dr. Tim
Roufs, responded that ethics are “beliefs (including values) and behaviors,
and that acting ethically involves living in accordance with commonly accepted
beliefs of the group(s) of which one is a member” (Personal Communication
April 2001). This was in keeping with description of ethics given to us by Dr.
Bob Evans from the UMD Philosophy department, in which he included such social
conventions as sitting on chairs rather than standing on tables in a classroom
(Class Lecture April 2001), raising the importance of knowing the accepted
behaviors for whatever group one may find oneself in. Of course, when one is a
member of many different groups (for example, an anthropologist who is also a
citizen of a country and has a religious affiliation) there may be ethical
conflicts. This is not a question we addressed in our interviews specifically,
but it came up indirectly in other contexts. One person pointed out that with
ethics, there is always an “except.” “Society has standards and those are
close to the ‘big E,’ like thou shalt not kill, ‘except...’ There is
always an ‘except,’ like war or someone who had the wrong religious
belief.” (Steve Mulholland, Personal Communication April 2001). So, while
ethics may be a personal decision between right and wrong, no one we spoke with
expressed the conviction that there are cut-and-dried answers, knowable in
advance, with which one can arm oneself before undertaking anthropological work.
The various codes of ethics for anthropologists can be a jumping-off point from
which to explore the realm of possible ethical issues which may arise in the
field and beyond. One way to know one’s own ethics is to explore the ethics of
personal relationships, and then, as Dr. Dave Smith said, “treat your
informants with even more respect” (Personal Communication April 2001).
The idea of professional codes of ethics in anthropology may stem from a need to
have some sort of script to follow in interpersonal communications. A conflict
of ethical considerations is inherent when the intention to carry out objective
research meets the intersubjective nature of anthropology. Professional codes
are used in many other fields with the intent to assure clients of the technical
and moral quality of the service provided. However, Franz Boas’ denunciation
of anthropologists spying for the U.S. government during World War I3
is just one example of the ethical worries that were apparent in anthropology
long before any attempt was made to codify ethical standards in the discipline
(Pels 1999). In Mobilizing Culture and Personality for World War II,
Virginia Yans-McLaughlin writes of Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, Ruth Benedict
and others who worked for the government during World War II: “They thought of
themselves as objective scientists committed to free expression of ideas; but
now they found themselves faced with the dilemma of whether they would play a
part in the manipulation of ideas” (1986: 207). Nevertheless, it was not until
the outrage over Project Camelot4 in the
mid-1960s that there was an attempt to create the “first ethical code in the
field” (Pels 1999: 15), and the American Anthropological Association drafted
its 1971 Statement on Ethics-Principles of Professional Responsibility.
The idea that a code of ethics is necessary is not held universally within the
field of anthropology, nor do anthropologists agree on what a code should
contain. George Appell has argued for a case method of instruction in ethics, on
the principle that a code is “inert knowledge” which fails to teach students
the skills needed to choose between conflicting principles (in Pels 1999: 15).
Peter Pels (in a paper that emerged from a discussion over the adoption of a new
ethical code for the Dutch Association of Anthropologists) argues that the three
main functions of an ethical discussion in anthropology -- “the critical
intervention in discussions affected by anthropology’s presentation of facts,
the education of practitioners and non practitioners in proper attitudes and
behavior towards cultural differences, and the guaranteeing of standards of
adequate representation of societies perceived as culturally different”
(1999:20) -- all “arose before there was any idea of codifying them” (1999:
20). Herman Amborn, responding to Pels in Current Anthropology, states
that ethical codes imply moral unambiguity, and that “Where there is no
ambiguity there is no conflict, and ethical decisions are needless” (1999).
Jeffrey Sluka adapted the AAA Code of Ethics for use in Australia and New
Zealand, but views current codes of professional ethics as part of the
“corporatization” of anthropology and argues for:
...a whole new range of “alternative” codes that can compete in the arena of
public debate about ethics in the discipline...What would an ethics code based
on a “bottom-up” perspective look like?...What would a subaltern,
“black,” women’s, Fourth World, or “public interest” code of ethics
look like? And what about local codes of ethics...? (1999)
Sluka’s position is that codification can be used to protect those who are
oppressed, and that there should be different codes of ethics for those on each
side of power relations (1999). Others argue against codes precisely because
they codify all relations, and favor instead the ethics of interpersonal
negotiations. Still others argue against the assumption that ethical dilemmas
can be resolved according to a code, independent of context.
Ethical Dilemmas
Not every anthropologist we interviewed had been confronted with an ethical
dilemma in anthropological work, and few had made significant ethical choices
pertaining to the public presentation of their work. Those who had faced ethical
challenges in presenting their work were not blind-sided by dilemmas, but were
able to engage in thoughtful decision-making processes. An archaeologist who
frequently invites the public to dig sites has found himself in the position of
challenging people’s religious beliefs.
You’ll get someone who comes in from a very conservative religious background
who takes the date of Bishop Usher5 in the
Bible as literal truth. And you start explaining a site, a Paleo-Indian or
archaic site that definitely predates Usher’s date and they argue adamantly,
quoting verse, scripture and everything else that it can’t be true. Basically,
the only thing I can suggest to do is to agree to disagree (Steve Mulholland,
Personal Communication April 2001).
He also points out that all field notes from work carried out by the U.S. Forest
Service and the Department of Transportation are their property, and courts have
upheld the exemption of this information from the Freedom of Information Act. An
archaeologist who has worked on many of the same sites stated that site
information is not given out without valid reasons in order to protect the sites
from looting or vandalism, although volunteers and the public are invited to the
sites (Sue Mulholland, Personal Communication March 2001). This is a risky
situation, and one archaeologist believes that on at least one occasion,
bringing the public to a dig site resulted in looting and compromising the
site’s integrity. However, he also said that he believes that when the general
public is given the opportunity to understand the information derived through
archaeological research, it serves to protect sites from looting and vandalism
(Woodward, Personal Communication March 2001). Steve Mulholland, a lithic
analyst at the UMD Archaeometry Lab, told us this about government-funded dig
sites:
I believe that the public is entitled to know almost everything, they paid for
it. I think we've demonstrated over the last fifteen years that the more the
public knows, the more conscious they are of the importance of the history of an
area. All of a sudden it isn’t just the European occupation, it becomes 10,000
years or more of history. Once they’re aware, then the issues of protection
and preservation are much easier addressed because the public is coming to
committee meetings demanding that sites be protected, and that speaks louder
than most archaeologists (Personal Communication April 2001).
A writer who received his PhD in anthropology told us that he made a decision
not to use material that he had included in his dissertation when he prepared
the work for publication. The materials in question were the notes and stories
of an old storyteller which were good examples of his research. But because he
was unable to get in touch with the original author to ask permission to use the
notes and stories, he did not include them in his book (Syring, Personal
Communication April 2001). An ethnographer and professor of anthropology did
extensive work with an American subculture. When the time came to write his work
for publication, he made the decision not to do so based on a personal bond that
had been established between him and his informants, and the way this had given
him an understanding of their jargon and behavior that an outsider would not
get. “I liked the guys...Many people do not realize that these subcultures
exist” (Anonymous, Personal Communication April 2001).
An anthropologist who did a study of a very powerful group in America, with the
specific intention of writing a book for the general public, made a decision to
go against the AAA principle of always identifying oneself as an anthropologist
and making clear the purpose of one’s investigation. He came to the conclusion
that the research he wanted to carry out would not be possible if he provided
full disclosure, but compensated for this by using only publicly verifiable
material in his book. Any information obtained in personal communication he
considered aberrant unless it could be verified in a public way. He has been in
two other fieldwork situations where he has made the decision not to identify
himself as an anthropologist because to do so would compromise his personal
safety. For this anthropologist, it was important that all of his information be
verifiable. Changing names of people and places can be a good way to protect
informants, but it can also be a “smoke screen to cover sloppy fieldwork,”
because the work is not verifiable. He also goes to great lengths to ensure that
his work is first published in the place it was done, and in the language of the
people he has worked with, in the interest of obtaining criticism before the
work is published in the U.S. (Anonymous, Personal Communication April 2001).
Laura Nader coined the term “studying up” in the 1960s, as part of an
attempt to encourage anthropologists to broaden their channels of study to
include cultures in positions of power, not just those who are oppressed. She
has maintained that the first article of the Principles of Professional
Responsibility, that “the anthropologist’s paramount responsibility is to
those he studies,” should not apply to this type of work, favoring instead the
idea of “unambiguous commitment to public duty rather than private interest”
(Nader 1999). We asked Dr. Emad if she believes that anthropology has a
different ethical standard when studying up, and her response was that there is
an openness with informants that anthropologists are motivated to sustain. The
disagreement within anthropology is apparent from the two interviews described
previously: one anthropologist who conducted his research openly and chose not
to use the material, one whose research was covert and served its intended
purpose of providing a published account of what he learned. On the subject of
responsibility to those studied versus the commitment to public duty, Maurice
Punch writes:
This codification presents a number of dilemmas, particularly for researchers
who engage in fieldwork. For instance, the concept of consent would seem to rule
out covert research, but how “honest” do you actually have to be about your
research purpose? The conflict orientation of some scholars -- in terms of
Becker’s call to take sides or Douglas’ demand that we deceive the
establishment in order to expose it -- seems to force moral choice upon us
(1998: 168).
Activism, Advocacy and “Giving Back”
Do anthropologists “bear a positive responsibility to speak out publicly...to
contribute to an ‘adequate definition of reality’ upon which public opinion
and public policy may be based” (AAA 1971), or is advocacy “an individual
decision, but not an ethical responsibility”? (AAA 1998) There is some
indication that the differentiation is semantic, based upon what individual
anthropologists understand the construction of “speak out publicly” and
“advocacy” to be. Dr. John Bower, a biological anthropologist at UMD stated
unequivocally that, “It would be unethical for bioanthropologists to sit on
the sidelines while people who don’t know what they are talking about are
creating the lore that the public hears, and believes because they hear it so
often. There is an obligation to be active” (Class Lecture March 2001). An
archaeologist told us that more likely than not, activism will not be in the
best interests of a community. But he followed this up by saying:
Missionaries in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries believed they were doing good.
Whether they were or not is a subjective observation depending on who is doing
the observation...any time you have an interaction between two different
cultural groups, you are going to have changes taking place. It may be very
small, such as a seed of any idea placed in someone’s mind. You can’t judge
right or wrong, or place moral value on it, it simply is going to happen (Steve
Mulholland, Personal Communication April 2001).
The anthropology professor who had made a decision not to publish one of his
ethnographic projects told us that while he had taken the role of advocate
before, he dislikes the style of most advocacy. It is political, and worse,
“Half of anthropology is religion. It’s like talking to a creationist.”
The solution to this, he said, is to describe what is there, and avoid
reflexivity, because as soon as you start interpreting you get into trouble. For
him, the real ethical choices are made in the field: Do you give people medical
help? He chose to do so, providing what medicine and medical help he could, when
asked (Anonymous, Personal Communication April 2001).
Dr. Smith gave a similar response, saying, “It’s fine to want to help
people, but you need to wait to be asked.” In his experience, the people he
was working with were “politically more astute” than he was. But he said
that anthropologists can help by developing a good working relationship with
Native Americans, and by talking with the elders. When Dr. Smith was asked to
return to the place where he had done his fieldwork to gather information for a
land use mapping project, and to testify before a commission on the same
subject, he went (Class Lecture April 2001). An anthropologist who has written a
number of books on Native American contributions to contemporary American
culture sees his books as what he gets out of his work with a community. He
strongly believes in giving back to the community, and that they should decide
what form that will take. For one community, he raised funds to build a library;
for another, he is sending young people for training as archaeologists in their
own country, so that they may become mediators of their own heritage (Anonymous,
Personal Communication April 2001).
As humans working with other humans, or any other living beings, the personal
ethics of anthropologists will guide choices made about fieldwork. Giving back
to the community that provided one with a dissertation or a book seems to many
anthropologists to be the right thing to do, because it grows from interpersonal
relationships. Activism, when treated as a priority in anthropological work, may
actually interfere with the original intent of the discipline. Paul Rabinow told
the New York Times: "The idea of someone going to the most
technologically simple societies and trying to learn lessons about human nature
by studying them, that's been refuted" (Zalewski 2000). In the same
article, Nancy Scheper-Hughes is quoted on anthropology’s modern propensity
toward "critiquing globalization" rather than studying cultures:
"A graduate student here at Berkeley recently turned in a classic and
beautiful ethnography about this village in Sierra Leone, about domestic rituals
and notions of secrecy," she says. "But a lot of my colleagues found
it wanting, because it wasn't going to help those people getting their arms
chopped off. So she has to go back and rewrite it" (Zalewski 2000).
Ethics of Public Presentation
“When it comes to the ethics and politics of their discipline,” Margaret
Mead wrote in 1978, “anthropologists have shown themselves to be
extraordinarily incapable of applying the principles of their own discipline to
themselves” (1978: 438). According to friends and critics alike, Mead had
first-hand experience on the subject of ethical double-standards. One of
Mead’s great accomplishments was to show that the findings of anthropologists
were not just an academic pursuit fixated on exotic peoples, but a subject
highly relevant to the daily concerns of Americans in their own society
(Worseley 1992: x). Elenor Leacock, one of Mead’s strong defenders against
Derek Freeman’s posthumous attacks, agreed that Mead’s popular works were
intended to show the variations possible in societies and the way in which
understanding this can aid us in finding solutions to social problems. But she
failed to confront the legacy of colonialism (1992: 19-20). Despite her cultural
relativist orientation, she did not understand the existing systems of law in
New Guinea, and believed that they could not govern themselves without Western
intervention (Foerstel 1992: 69). More recently, anthropologists have alleged
that she created Manus culture for an American audience by combining her
perceptions, based on her cultural upbringing, and the presentation that her
culture demanded (Iamo 1992: 83). Today, anthropological works are examined not
just by Western scholars, but by people from the communities that have been
studied, who believe that the works of Mead and others imposed their Western
models and were coconspirators with colonialism (Foerstel 1992: 72). And Mead,
the anthropologist who introduced U.S. popular culture to cultural relativism,
has been criticized for the “impressionistic and often dubious nature of the
evidence she used in these popular works” (Worseley 1992: x). Worseley further
states that while Mead was capable of rigorous work and thorough evidence when
writing for her colleagues, she did not use the same standards when writing
popular works (xi).
What are the standards for popular works, and do they differ from those for
academic works? One anthropologists told us that he writes for a general
audience only, and that if he had to write for academia, “I would not write”
(Anonymous, Personal Communication April 2001). Dr. Smith said that anthropology
should be doing a lot more writing for public consumption, and used the example
of Margaret Mead’s Redbook articles:6
“She was engaged” (Class Lecture April 2001). David Syring told us that he
was taught how to do alternative ethnographies, and had in mind from the
beginning that he would be writing for more than one specific group: “I just
tried to be broader, but still be relevant to what I wanted to say” (Personal
Communication April 2001). Dr. Emad was asked if a choice must be made between
writing for a popular or an academic audience, or if the two can be combined.
She told us she does not know, but in writing her own work now, “That’s
right where I’m at” (Class Lecture April 2001)
On the subject of how to write for a popular audience, everyone we spoke with
agreed that jargon should be avoided, although Dr. Mulholland added that jargon
can be used if it is adequately explained (Personal Communication April 2000).
And the use of certain words of phrases that have negative associations, it was
agreed, should be avoided in any type of writing. In the interest of determining
what the public’s understanding of some common anthropological terms actually
is, we conducted a small survey. We asked for definitions of five words, with
one set being: primitive, civilization, tribe, magic,
and shaman. The second set of word was: progress, evolution,
myth, native, and race. Our conclusion was that more than
60% of the definitions given did not correctly or acceptably correlate to the
dictionary definitions of the words. This would seem to indicate that there are
more words requiring explicit or contextual definition than anthropologists
might think there are.
Decisions about what to present are complicated by the knowledge that there is
always the possibility that people will misconstrue information, or use it out
of context. An anthropologist who has appeared on television told us that he has
found that invariably, from a thirty-minute interview, the only thing he did not
want to by quoted on is what will be used. He has accepted that he cannot
control what is done with the interviews he does for television or other media.
He believes it is worth it, however, because of the need to bring an
“anthropological perspective to issues” (Anonymous, Personal Communication
April 2001). We were also told about an anthropologist who is studying Nuer
immigrants in the U.S. They come to this country as victims of oppression and
refugees in need of help, so they receive charity from church groups. But they
are, by their heritage, nomadic people. When they move on, and are asked about
all the things they have been given, they reply that they will be given more
things in the next place they go. If this is published, it could insult the
sensibilities of the people who are acting charitably. The same anthropologist,
when interviewing a Nuer woman about Nuer history and culture, was asked, Why
don’t you just read that book over there? The book she was indicating was
Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer. The law of unintended consequences applies
no less to anthropology than to any other field (Anonymous, Personal
Communication April 2001).
Dr. Smith told us that one should always check back with sources about what is
presented, and other anthropologists agreed with this principle (Class Lecture
April 2001). But one person pointed out that when the standard is to allow
informants to review what has been written about them, people are always trying
to shape and control how they are perceived (Anonymous, Personal Communication
April 2001). The postmodernist belief is that representation is in and of itself
an ethical dilemma, and that anthropologists should question whether or not they
are even able to represent an other. But, as one anthropologist told us,
tourists and journalists create representations of cultures all the time, “at
least anthropologists are trained” (Anonymous, Personal Communication April
2001).
All of this leads us back to the impetus for this year’s senior seminar focus
on ethics: Patrick Tierney’s Darkness in El Dorado, and the questions
that have been raised about anthropological ethics and the public perception of
anthropology as a discipline. While Tierney is an investigative journalist, not
an anthropologist, the book has affected the light in which at least some in the
general public view anthropology, and there is at least circumstantial evidence
indicating that Tierney was a mouthpiece for anthropologists Terence Turner and
Leslie Sponsel (Zalewski 2000; Cantor 2000). Unfortunately, using Darkness
in El Dorado to generate a discourse on ethics is akin to using the works of
Carlos Casteneda7 to talk about shamanism:
when the discussion ends, we still do not know what is truth and what is
fabrication (Tooby 2000; Cantor 2000). Although the AAA appointed a committee to
review the book’s allegations, the book itself is so unethical that it has
done less to stimulate ethical discussions than it has to deepen the rift
between already existing factions in anthropology. Debate over Tierney’s book
has been divided along political lines, with sociobiologists on one side and
cultural determinists on the other (Zalewski 2000; Cantor 2000). Had he been an
anthropologist, Tierney might have chosen to write the book he went to the
Amazon intending to write.8 Mining and
disease are killing the Yanomami now, and it is possible that if the public were
aware of their circumstances, the government could be forced to take protective
action. Instead of writing about the conditions that exist, he chose to write an
indictment of what might have been, over thirty years ago. Anthropologists whose
work is shaped in part through a discourse on ethics have a foundation for
understanding the importance of honest information obtained with integrity.
Personal relationships in the field are vital to this cause, because it is
difficult to see your informants as only “human subjects” when you know them
as neighbors, friends and elders. Only by maintaining honesty and integrity can
the credibility of anthropology be established in the eyes of the public.
1 We have chosen to avoid the term “Public Anthropology,” which is becoming a recognized category within the discipline, and was the theme of the 2000 meetings of the AAA. Although it the idea is not fully defined, and there are disagreements on what it means to be a “Public Anthropologist,” the term is generally used in association with what many would consider to be Applied Anthropology. Our project has been concerned with anthropological material as it is presented to an audience wider than that found in academic or applied circles, but not with whether the material was conceived for applied or academic purposes.
2 On a separate issue, Dr. Emad gave a lengthy description of “militant particularism,” and all the personal biases and cultural assumptions that an anthropologist must recognize and understand in herself before she will be able to do good work. Moments later, she commented that “objectivity is not part of my toolbox.” Ethics and the ability of anthropology to provide reliable and accurate accounts of cultural activities are very serious issues. But if anthropologists cannot laugh at themselves from time to time, and recognize the irony inherent in the discipline, these issues become a quagmire of righteousness.
3 Boas expressed a fear that “in consequence of their acts every nation will look with distrust upon the visiting foreign investigator who wants to do honest work, suspecting sinister designs” (quoted in Pels 1999: 15).
4 Project Camelot was a social science research project, under the auspices of the CIA, which supported the U.S. Defense Department’s counterinsurgency program in Latin America. It was canceled due to protest (Pels 1999).
5 Bishop Usher used Biblical material to calculate the date that God created Adam as 4040 B.C.
6 Mead, with Rhoda Metraux, wrote a monthly advice column for women in Redbook from 1961 to 1978.
7 Casteneda was granted a PhD in anthropology for his third book on the teachings of a Yacqui shaman he called Don Juan. Critics have alleged that his books are fiction, while Casteneda, and those on his dissertation committee, maintain otherwise.
8 Leslie Sponsel’s biography contains a reference to a “forthcoming” book by P. Tierney, Last Tribes of El Dorado: The Gold Wars in the Amazon Rain Forest (Cantor 2000). A Library of Congress record was created for a book of the same title, scheduled for publication in 1995 by Viking Press, but never appeared in print for unspecified reasons (Grossman 2000).
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