Ethical Responsibility in the Face of the Incoming Administration

By Kurt E. Dongoske

For most people, the beginning of a new year offers a renewed sense of hope, happiness, and prosperity for the future. For me, as the Zuni Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and an archaeologist working in cultural resource management in the Southwest for 40 years, the dawning of 2017 brought anxiety; anxiety born out of a feeling of foreboding that our future, the future of our careers in cultural resource management, and the future of our environment are in imminent danger. Normally, I’m a pretty optimistic fellow, but the results of the recent presidential election left me feeling more than pessimistic. My sense of foreboding is based, in part, on the campaign platform of the President-elect in which he promised to diminish or abolish regulations, underscored by his anti-science, anti-climate change and fact denying rhetoric. Moreover, his recent announcements of identified individuals for key administrative positions heighten my apprehension.

Once the President-elect is in office, I fully expect an executive and legislative branch assault on all environmental and historic preservation legislation and regulation that industry currently views as being unnecessary impediments to so-called ‘development.’ The incoming administration most likely will move quickly to effectively promote and encourage gas, oil, and coal extraction on federal lands and couple this with a move toward seriously reducing compliance with environmental protection legislation and strong arm tactics to any push back by environmental or professional organizations.

Closer to home, I anticipate that the incoming administration will act to fundamentally undermine the preservation community’s commitment to protect, preserve, and interpret historical properties and cultural resources. Now more than ever, as the natural resource extraction industry is afforded unique privileging by the federal government, archaeological sites, sacred sites, traditional cultural properties and landscapes may be threatened with destruction without the current appropriate consideration or treatment. Efforts by the new administration to exempt categories of development projects from Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, including reforming NEPA and the Section 106 process (e.g., diminishing or exempting compliance for privileged projects), will have a deleterious effect on cultural resource management.

But it is not just archaeological sites, historic properties, places, landscapes and the environment that will be threatened. The Republican Congress may entertain bills that seek to change what types of research are funded under the National Science Foundation (NSF). Republicans have already introduced legislation to remove archaeology, anthropology, and other social sciences research from NSF funding. If the attempts to eliminate NSF funding for these fields of research are successful, it will have a profound impact on academic-based anthropological and archaeological research for professors, graduate students, and the communities with which they work. This will cause negative reverberations throughout the academy and, even more importantly, historically and geographically marginalized communities that rely on the academy to make their voice, concerns, and struggles more public and responsible entities more accountable.

While the new Republican held Congress is anticipated to work toward diminishing environmental and historic preservation regulations, they may concomitantly attempt to curtail federally required Tribal consultation by reversing previous Executive Orders on tribal consultation. Should this occur, it will have a profoundly negative effect on the ability of Tribal Nations to put forth meaningful and effective voices in the protection of their places of sacred and traditional cultural importance. One need only look at the Dakota Access Pipeline, the resistance by the Standing Rock Sioux and the militarized response by the oil industry as an example of what may be in store for Native people. The “other”-izing of immigrant Mexicans and Muslims by the President-elect can be anticipated to extend to Native Americans as a form of delegitimizing and dismissing their claims of primacy of association to the landscape and to natural and cultural resources. If all of this occurs, not only will archaeological sites, traditional cultural properties and landscapes be threatened, if not completely disregarded, but also it will result in the violation of basic human rights for Native Americans to express a meaningful voice in the protection of their sacred places, cultural identities and living heritage.

As anthropologists and archaeologists, we should be deeply troubled with the President-elect’s past and current turgidity toward dismantling or decreasing legislation that provides for the consideration and protection of clean air, clean water, and healthy ecosystems. We have a professional ethical responsibility to work collaboratively and effectively to advocate for and protect the archaeological and cultural resources record and to speak out and work against any and all efforts that threaten these important places. Moreover, as anthropologists we have a profound ethical responsibility to advocate on behalf of indigenous people when they are being disenfranchised from a regulatory process that has been altered to privilege oil, gas, and coal extraction efforts on their ancestral lands.

The American Anthropological Association (AAA), the Society for American Archaeology, and the Register of Professional Archaeologists all have ethical principals or codes of conduct that define our responsibilities to the archaeological record. For example, the Society for American Archaeology’s ethical principle No. 1 calls upon all members of the Society to be "both caretakers of and advocates for the archaeological record for the benefit of all people," and "to use the specialized knowledge they gain to promote public understanding and support for its long-term preservation." Recently, the Society for American Archaeology’s Board of Directors issued direction to the membership (Our Ethical Principles, Our Actions: Member Responsibilities in a Time of Change) in response to what is viewed as a pending time of change. They added the following directions to the membership regarding ethical principle No. 1:

As members, we will therefore oppose any initiatives to weaken the present legal protections of archaeological sites and materials, be these through legislative process, rewriting of agency regulations, or other means. Moreover, our stewardship responsibilities require that we support and defend initiatives aimed at mitigating the impacts on cultural heritage of accelerating climate disruptions.

The AAA’s code of ethics speaks to our professional responsibilities to support and defend the rights of indigenous peoples and this is important for us, as anthropologists, to never forget and always act on. The AAA represents all anthropologists and archaeologists working in the United States and our collective economic viability and our ability to secure federal funding for academic research and cultural resource management projects will be under assault. It seems to me that every archaeological, anthropological, historic preservation and environmental professional organization has a dog in this fight and must be willing to speak out and lobby against any efforts to abolish or decrease environmental protection and historic preservation legislation.

As members of professional organizations we should encourage and support our organizations to establish strong lobbying coalitions with fellow environmental organizations in order to actively and effectively thwart any legislative or executive efforts to weaken current legal protections for the environment and historic properties, places, and landscapes. As individuals, I encourage each and every one of us to act locally, at the state level and nationally by contacting your congressional representatives and senators and expressing your concerns regarding the movement to rollback regulations, for those regulations not only help protect our collective cultural heritage and a healthy environment for generations to come, but are the backbone of providing appropriate consideration for and attention to various places that are central for the identity and ongoing traditional practices and benefits of countless indigenous and traditional communities.

Beyond Preservation: Expanding the Ethical Responsibilities of Archaeologists

Beyond Preservation: Expanding the Ethical Responsibilities of Archaeologists

M. Jay Stottman
University of Kentucky
Kentucky Archaeological Survey
mjstot2@uky.edu

In this blog post I will examine how the use of archaeology within the education of primary and secondary students challenges our notion of preservation-focused ethics and compels us to expand our ethical responsibilities. In particular, I will discuss the example of allowing school children to participate in real archaeological excavations. Traditionally, ethics in archaeology and anthropology have been focused on preservation in one form or another, and more recently, interactions with stakeholders. Ethics policies and statements have, rightly I believe, placed an emphasis on the preservation and protection of cultural resources and research with the prime directive of causing “no harm”. Our colonial past necessitated preservation-minded ethics to prevent misguided research and to differentiate scholarly pursuits from treasure hunting. Although we have modified our ethics policies over the years, as applications of anthropology and archaeology have increased interactions with communities and stakeholders, they still privilege our control over and responsibility for the preservation of cultural resources and research. A consequence of such policies has been the limiting of public access to and interaction with cultural resources, which has presented an ethical dilemma for those interested in advocacy and activism, as noted by several other blog postings. This consequence is perhaps less an issue for applied anthropologists than it is for archaeologists, as the former have a more established tradition of activism and advocacy. Recent iterations of the AAA ethics statement reflect ethical responsibilities to communities and stakeholders. However, most AAA ethics principles do not seem to be aimed at archaeologists, as cultural resource protection and stewardship is foremost in archaeology. Since interactions with or research on present-day living communities within archaeology is seen as limited, such principles tend to be absent or understated in archaeology ethics policies. Thus, activist archaeologists wrestle with the dilemma of negotiating between our preservation ethics and the desire to use archaeological processes and information to benefit and advocate for present-day communities.

Many activist projects engage with and educate the public by using archaeology to develop educational curricula and to provide hands on learning experiences for primary and secondary students. When we typically think of archaeology and education, we tend to think of training our students in academia to become archaeologists or educating the public about our preservation ethics. However, many public and activist archaeologists have found that teaching archaeological skills and perspectives to primary and secondary students is an engaging and effective way to benefit communities. Students not only learn about history and culture, they also learn math, science, language arts, technology, and art by participating in real research. By doing real research, students not only can learn skills and concepts, they also can understand larger cultural contexts and examine issues of social justice. Thus, some projects have educational goals which are just as important as our traditional research and preservation goals. Such projects force us outside of our comfort zone and invariably challenge our notion of preservation ethics.

My experiences in archaeology-based education programs have at times been at odds with preservation ethics and certainly have drawn criticism from some who feel that such programs are unethical. For example, I have allowed children to participate in all aspects of real archaeological research from research design to dissemination, including excavation. No sandbox or fake digs here. Some might feel that I am sending the wrong message to kids which can encourage them to loot. Others may feel that having untrained children digging could cause irreparable harm to the archaeological record. I would argue that with proper supervision students can participate in excavations with little to no risk to the quality of the archaeological research. Through the experience of doing archaeology, students gain a better understanding of and respect for archaeology and thus are more likely to accept our preservation message. Additionally, through archaeology we have helped students learn important curricula concepts, such as the scientific method, historical inquiry, grids and coordinates, measurements, and yes, ethics.

However, when we do such projects, we are confronted not only by our ethical values, but also many additional ethical concerns and responsibilities not unlike those faced by applied anthropologists. We have additional responsibilities with our foray into education, such as to the safety of students, to the curricula of teachers, to assessing the effectiveness of programs, and toward collaborating with and respecting the field of education. These considerations should be a part of our ethical values, as much as our preservation rhetoric. How do we balance our traditional ethical values with our desires to make our field more relevant to the public and advocate for communities? How do we incorporate new ethical responsibilities into our policies? How do we reconcile the inherent tensions between our traditional ethics and our responsibilities to the people for whom we advocate? Our ethics should not only be derived from the fear of our colonial past or a looter’s shovel, they also should be derived from archaeology’s articulation with present-day communities. We are now beginning to address our ethical responsibilities related to educational projects. The work of the recent AIA outreach and educator’s conference on heritage education ethics stands as an example. The development of additional ethics principles has drawn and should draw from our applied and cultural colleagues, because what has traditionally been seen as diverging interests among the subfields of anthropology, public, activist, and educational archaeology demonstrates that when it comes to ethics, archaeologists have much more in common with our anthropological brethren than we may think.

The Missing Ethics of Heritage

 

Bonnie J. Clark
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Curator for Archaeology, Museum of Anthropology
University of Denver

 

Ethics codes should play a key role in the education of future professionals.  Indeed, in teaching a capstone course for graduating seniors, I justify our multi-day exploration of ethics in part by referencing the Society for Applied Anthropology’s ethics code, which states in its principle 4 that “Our training should inform students as to their ethical responsibilities.”  But beyond ethical obligations, such training provides discrete touchstones to students who are learning how to behave in the world as anthropologists.

 

One way that I find codes pedagogically useful is that they provide benchmarks with which students can measure their own practice and that of others in the field.  And it was during just such a recent exercise in my Applied Heritage Management course that the students found the current AAA code of ethics lacking.  As part of an analysis of heritage management websites, students were asked whether sites failed, met, or exceeded the ethics codes of the AAA or the Society for American Archaeology (SAA).

 

It was revealing that few of my students found the AAA ethical principles salient for this exercise.  Despite the fact that the first principle in both the AAA and the SAA codes mentions stewardship of archaeological resources, students tended to choose the SAA “Stewardship” principle instead of the AAA’s “Do No Harm.” I suspect subdisciplinary position had some role to play (many of the students identify as archaeologists and so defaulted to the SAA principles).  However, I also believe that students looking to support advocacy skip over a principle whose title implies it is only about avoiding harm, despite later prose to the contrary.  In pointing this out, my experience aligns with others who find the code lacking when it comes to advocacy work (e.g. Rob Borovsky’s recent blog for this column).

 

Even more troubling was that students who chose case studies related to areas of heritage other than archaeological sites found little in either code to assist them.  They needed to translate the codes to cover the preservation of historic buildings or cultural landscapes.  In such cases students mostly substituted “historic resource” for “archaeological site.”  However, those who were interested in the preservation of culturally-important natural resources really had few places to turn.  Making the AAA statement on ethics relevant in this case requires a rather convoluted route, using principle 4 to identify natural resources as “affected parties” or perhaps “vulnerable populations.”

 

The management of heritage continues to be a robust and growing sector of our discipline as evidenced both by theoretical engagement and applied practice.  Many anthropologists contribute to the heritage fields, whether through social impact studies, museum work, or cultural resources management.  Such practitioners do have resources regarding ethics to which they can turn.  For example there are a number of other ethical codes more geared to heritage (e.g. those of the International Council on Monuments and Sites or ICOMOS. And there are also public discussions of heritage ethics, such as those supported by the Leiden-Stanford ethics lab.

 

Yet it is clear that the legal mandates for preservation from the local to the international level are not matched by our disciplinary ethical codes.  That makes for awkward class discussions, but even worse, it fails our students and those already in the field.  There are many good reasons why anthropologists should help people preserve their heritage, but we must turn to other benchmarks to support that position.

Beyond Stuff-based Ownership: Do Archaeologists have an Obligation to People?

Sarah M. Rowe and Patricia A. McAnany, InHerit (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

The first principle of the AAA Ethics Statement is “Do No Harm.” An archaeological addendum to this principle advises archaeologists that “given the irreplaceable nature of the archaeological record, the conservation, protection and stewardship of that record is the principle ethical obligation….” A similar sentiment is stated in the ethical principles of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA).

The stewardship imperative has been critiqued on a number of fronts since it was introduced into archaeological ethics in the late 1990s, not the least because it utilizes the primacy of scientific authority to reinforce the archaeologist’s privileged position to speak about the past (Wylie 2005). These authoritative discourses about the past are not value-free; they can serve to either disrupt or perpetuate power imbalances present in today’s society. Particularly when working within a colonial or post-colonial context in which people’s history with land and archaeological objects often is one of dispossession, the assumption of professional stewardship should be approached with care.

As archaeologists working under the broad rubric of “community archaeology”, we propose that professional obligations to the materials that constitute the archaeological record exist in a dynamic tension with another set of professional obligations—those extending to the people with whom we relate as practicing archaeologists. In this regard, a “virtue ethics” framework applied to archaeology by Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson (2006) deserves another round of consideration. Such a framework encourages practitioners to identify and reflect upon the relationships of trust and respect that can be formed with various publics. Noting that imbalances in power often prevent the development of trust relationships, Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson (2006) hit upon a raw nerve in the practice of archaeology in Latin America, which demands that “foreign” archaeologists satisfy nationalist requirements that can position them sideways to local and particularly indigenous communities.

Given this complex tapestry of power and authority, thinking nationally and acting locally has the potential to create an ethical conundrum. Efforts to build relationships of trust and respect concomitantly need to occur at many levels. Through a University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill program called InHerit (www.in-herit.org), we have focused on the grass-roots level and interactions with members of local and often indigenous communities. In these activities we emphasize education as a key way of addressing power imbalances and building trust. Not, swoop-in-and-tell-people-what-you-want-them-to-know education, but a two-way street of exchanging ideas about the past and engendering a dialogue about how we (humanity writ large) can build an understanding of the past. InHerit has undertaken projects with local partners throughout the Maya region. For instance, we have worked with a local NGO called ProPetén in El Petén, Guatemala to re-formulate a comprehensive curriculum for grades 3-6 that incorporates indigenous knowledge, maternal language, site conservation, and archaeological interpretation. To encourage Maya archaeologists to take that extra step to create a reciprocal exchange of information with local communities, we sponsored a grant competition called the Bi-Directional Knowledge Exchange (BKE) grant. BKEs provide small funds to enable archaeologists and local people to engage in the back and forth exchange of ideas that is crucial to the establishment of a trust relationship.

An emphasis on virtue ethics disrupts the distinction between ethics and morals that is outlined in the preamble to the AAA Principles of Professional Responsibility. As archaeologists committed to working closely with communities this distinction does not feel either practical nor justified. We do feel a moral obligation to people who are impacted by archaeological research and an obligation to build relationships of trust and understanding that move well beyond the stuff-based stewardship principles that have been archaeologists’ primary concern. It’s time to acknowledge the triadic sociality of our profession. People are part of the picture. It’s not just us and the potsherds—if it ever was.

References
Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip and T.J. Ferguson
2006 Trust and archaeological practice: towards a framework of Virtue Ethics. In The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice, edited by C. Scarre and G. Scarre, pp. 115-130. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Wylie, Alison
2005 The promise and perils of an ethic of stewardship. In Embedding Ethics, edited by L. Meskell and P. Pels, pp. 47–68. Berg Publishers, Oxford, UK.

Links
InHerit (www.in-herit.org)
SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics (http://saa.org/AbouttheSociety/PrinciplesofArchaeologicalEthics/tabid/203/Default.aspx)
SHA Ethics Statement (http://www.sha.org/index.php/view/page/ethics)

Steward the Past and Avoid Harm?

Charles Golden
Brandeis University

Andrew Scherer
Brown University

The ethical guidelines of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) call archaeologists to stewardship, and exhort us to serve as “both caretakers of and advocates for the archaeological record for the benefit of all people.” To act for the benefit of “all people” is, however, easier said than done and our efforts to steward the past can have complex implications for the communities where we work. The AAA Statement on Ethics acknowledges these difficulties, enjoining us to do no harm, to act honestly, to obtain necessary permissions, and to weigh competing ethical obligations recognizing that “defining what constitutes an affected community is a dynamic and necessary process.” What happens, though, when our role as stewards conflicts with the beliefs and interests of local stakeholders?  How are we to operate when local stakeholders have competing visions for the use of the land and its resources, or when local communities with their own claims over the past do not recognize the authority of the national or local government?

For a little over a decade we have faced these issues while leading a regional research project focused on the political world of the Precolumbian Maya in the Usumacinta River valley, which today forms much of the border between Guatemala and Mexico.  In Guatemala we work in the Sierra del Lacandón National Park (SLNP), where the renowned Classic Maya capital of Piedras Negras is located.  Park managers work closely with the well-established agricultural cooperatives around the borders of the SLNP to achieve a balance between environmental and economic sustainability.  The park is, however, frequently at risk from “invasores,” illicit settlers who occupy parkland without legal permission.  These illicit settlers loot archaeological sites and clear forest without proper fire controls, destroying the cropland and natural resources of legal communities.  They also create security risks for park rangers and researchers, some of whom they have attacked and held captive.  Such actions have frequently impinged on our ability to mount effective investigations and thwarted the conservation efforts of park authorities.

The larger political and economic situation in Guatemala means that while some invasores are connected to ranching or narco-trafficking interests, some are merely people in search of land to support the basic needs of their families.   As archaeologists involved in the conservation of the cultural resources of the park, we find ourselves working in the public domain as advocates for park authorities who seek peaceful, legal means for the relocation of these illicit communities to areas outside the park.   In so doing, we are acting from the position that while some economic harm may come from the relocation of these families, there is a greater good in protecting the cultural and natural resources of the park in the interests of the people of Guatemala and especially those licit communities that ring the park and legally take advantage of its resources.  Many of these communities have existed for decades and suffered heavily in Guatemala’s civil war.  They depend on a healthy ecosystem to practice sustainable use of the forest and look to the possibility of eco- and archaeo-tourism development in the longer-term.

On the Mexican side of the river there is a very different economic and political environment. Towns of private landowners are interspersed with communities that hold land as inalienable communal property.  Both private and communal landowners are often reluctant to permit archaeological work.  Some refuse us entry out of the fear of government expropriation of their property.  Others simply want nothing to do with the central government; as archaeologists with permits held from that government we are viewed as its agents.  Some people know that archaeological work would impinge on what they view as their own perfectly legitimate efforts to mine ancient architecture for building materials for modern homes.  For others, there is a desire to see immediate, often unrealistic, economic gain that we are unwilling to falsely promise.  While field research can offer short-term economic benefits from employment, archaeological projects are typically not long-term development projects and archaeologists are not well-trained in development. We do our best, however, to work with communities on local museums, touristic development, or other efforts initiated by the community.

Despite these challenges our work has moved forward in large part thanks to a few local interlocutors.  These long-term collaborations have helped us develop relationships of trust in the communities where we work and opened doors for further research.  Patience and dialogue have been fundamental.   When prevented from documenting a site we have chosen not to leverage the legal recourse available to us from national authorities that might permit us access. Any short-term gain would simply come at the cost of eroding local trust in the long-term.

Ultimately we find ourselves balancing the necessities of research against the diverse interests of the communities in which we work. Our ideal research goal in both Guatemala and Mexico would be full-coverage survey. In reality we must accept a more patchwork outcome that reflects our contemporary entanglements. That we consider the needs and interests of local communities and have been unable to document some sites has been indirectly attacked in national grant applications.   At least one reviewer has lambasted our approach as “drive-by archaeology.”  We would ask what such a reviewer imagines are the rights and responsibilities of an archaeologist?

Archaeologists must accept that we are frequently arrogating to ourselves the right to decide what past, and present, should be stewarded and what the least harmful course of action may be.   We must do our best to engage all local stake-holders in stewardship, though some may refuse such engagement.  We must accept that there are times we cannot, and perhaps should not, protect the cultural patrimony that we hold dear.  We must also accept that despite our best intentions we may not be able to protect that patrimony without doing harm of some sort to local communities, and we must weigh this against the benefits for other stake-holders.   Finally, it is an ethical imperative that we do a better job of preparing our students – the next generation of archaeologists – to wrestle with such conundrums, to acknowledge the ambiguities and perhaps be yet better and less harmful stewards than we ourselves sometimes are.

The Ethics of Collaborating with Artifact Collectors

Bonnie L. Pitblado

In October 2013, more than 1,100 people attended the well-publicized “Paleoamerican Odyssey” (PO) conference in Santa Fe.  Professional archaeologists constituted 46% of the attendees; non-professionals the other 54%.  The conference featured the usual array of scholarly presentations and posters, but it also offered secure space for 39 museums and universities and 11 organizer-vetted private individuals to showcase collections of Paleoamerican artifacts.

The collections room was packed much of the time with interested professionals and non-professionals alike.  However, some archaeologists—not a majority, but more than a few—vocalized their view that inviting private artifact collectors to share their finds at PO had violated archaeological ethics.  For most who expressed this perspective, the perceived ethical breach lay in the domain of commercialization, with the concern being that showcasing privately held material culture increased its monetary value and thereby facilitated, even promoted, its sa