Anthropology 200 Lecture 11.1

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Anthropology 200Lecture 11.1

• March 21, 2006
• Anthropology and a
• Code of Ethics

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• Website for Anthropology 200
• http//toby.library.ubc.ca/ereserve/er-coursepage.
  cfm?id2182
• E-mail contact
• Anthropology 200 Teaching Assistant,
  Stephen s_robbins_at_telus.net

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Romance on a Global Stage

• Constables Background
• Trajectory
• Publications
• Cross-border Marriages Gender and Mobility in
  Transnational Asia (2005)
• Maid to Order in Hong Kong Stories of Filipina
  Workers (1997)
• Guest People Hakka Identity in China and Abroad
  (1996)
• Christian Souls and Chinese Spirits A Hakka
  Community in Hong Kong (1994)
• Issues for anthropology
• Public anthropology, anthropology that matters
• Methods, the field (see also Passaro, Dyck)
• traditional
• multi-sited
• Virtual
• transnational
• Feminist anthropology
• Second-wave approaches critiqued
• Men and women as focus family ideals,
  masculinity and femininity
• Political economy and cultural logics of love and
  desire love not undifferentiated, universal
  category
• Ethics

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Contemporary Ethical Concerns

• Research and "positive affects" on lives
• Communities and designing their OWN research
  projects
• Control of research in communities
• Publishing together
• Translation
• Collaborative work
• Reviewing transcripts
• Directions
• Examples
• John Bennett and Susan Rowley, eds. 2005.
  Uqalurait An Oral History of Nunavut. Foreword
  by Suzanne Evaloardjuk et al. Montreal
  McGill-Queens University Press.
• David Anderson. Identity and Ecology in Arctic
  Siberia The Number One Reindeer Brigade. 2000.
  New York Oxford University Press.
• Leslie A. Robertson and Dara Culhane, eds. 2005.
  In Plain Sight Reflections on Life in Downtown
  Eastside Vancouver. Vancouver Talonbooks

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Anthropology and Ethical Concerns

• Early Code of Ethics
• 1950s/60s events cause rethinking
• Funding of research
• Responsibility to those involved in the study
• Turning points
• Project Chamelot
• Irving Horowitz. 1974. The Rise and Fall of
  Project Camelot Studies in the Relation between
  Social Science and Practical Politics.
  Cambridge MIT Press.
• Vietnam War
• Two camps of anthros emerge
• Supporters
• Those opposed, placing people ahead of government

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History of Code of Ethics

• 1970 Standard Code of Ethics adopted by
  American Anthropological Association
• Also Canadian Tri-Council Working Group on
  Ethics, 1996
• Major elements
• Primary responsibility to those being studied or
  taking part
• No covert research, including in times of war
• Informed consent critical
• Attention to anonymity
• Rules of host governments should be respected
  visas, etc.
• Move toward community consultation
• Significant change in Training

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Renewed Ethical Debates

• 2000 El Dorado Debates
• Napoleon Chagnon
• Yanomamo The Fierce People. 1977. New York
  Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• The Feast. 1970. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
  in collaboration with the Venezuelan Institute of
  Scientific Investigation made by Center for
  Documentary Anthropology, Brandeis University,
  and Dept. of Human Genetics, University of
  Michigan. Napoleon Chagnon. 30min.
• Patrick Tierney. 2000. Darkness in El Dorado
  How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the
  Amazon. New York Norton. 

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Tierneys Accusations

• Charges Against Anthros and Journalists
• Intervention critiqued
• Chagnon and 1968 measles epidemic among Yanomamo
• Chagnon and James Neel administered a live
  vaccine
• Chagnons methods criticized
• Exacerbated violence among villagers  
• Darwinian ideas that Yanomamo men who murder and
  at war w/ neighbors have more success in
  reproduction
•  Accused of getting people to tell secrets about
  their neighbors
• Unethical methods of documentary film
• NOVA/BBC 1996 documentary, "Warriors of the
  Amazon"
• Informed consent not properly applied
• Esp. regarding blood samples for Neels research

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Anthropology On Trial

• Immediate response
• 2000 Annual Meetings
• Revisiting ills of the discipline
• Anthropology and colonialism
• Talal Asad, ed. 1973. Anthropology and the
  Colonial Encounter.
• Recent volumes
• Francisco M. Salzano and A. Magdalena Hurtado,
  eds. 2004. Lost Paradises and the Ethics of
  Research and Publication. New York Oxford
  University Press.
• scientifically objective anthropologists
  have avoided championing change
• What has discipline done to improve health of
  indigenous people worldwide? 
• What are institutional plans of action at level
  of grant agencies, universities?
• Commission established
• Louise Lamphere (then AAA president) our
  primary responsibility is to those we study