Ethics Forum

Authored by Leslie E. Sponsel

In the late 1960s when I was a graduate student in anthropology at Indiana University, and again in the early 1970s at Cornell University, not only was no separate course offered on professional ethics in anthropology, but no class even raised the subject. However, during the Vietnam War increasing concern about the subject gradually emerged in the American Anthropological Association, eventually leading to the establishment of its Committee on Ethics in 1969. Early collections of case studies and commentaries appeared in the late 1970s (Appell 1978, Rynkiewich and Spradley 1978). During subsequent decades, occasional textbooks and anthologies were published (e.g., Fluehr-Lobban 1991).

Then, suddenly since 2000, there has been a marked increased of attention to professional ethics, perhaps in response to the publication of Patrick Tierney’s (2000) controversial book Darkness in El Dorado. This marked increase is clear from the number of the citations for articles on ethics in the Anthropology Index Online from around 200 in the 1990s to over 1,500 in the first decade of the 21^st century. There are other indicators as well, such as a count of the year of publication among the citations on ethics in the Oxford Bibliographies Online (Sponsel 2016). There were twice as many citations in the two decades of 2000-2020, compared to the previous four decades of 1960-1999. Furthermore, a survey of the index of the program guide for the annual conventions of the AAA using ethics as the key word reveals only a few sessions with ethics during the 1990s, whereas during the 2000s some years have a dozen or more sessions which often lead to publications. In short, now there is a wealth of material for an entire course on professional ethics in anthropology, even one focused solely on the subfield of cultural anthropology.

In what follows I describe the Ethics in Anthropology course I have been teaching at the University of Hawai`i during the last two decades that takes advantage of this accumulating material, and that considers recurrent ethical scandals and controversies in the field.

The course pursues the subject historically in relation to American wars because they often generate controversy within anthropology. Indeed, the exposure of anthropologists working in Central America not only as field researchers, but also as spies for the U.S. government, by Franz Boas (1919) is often cited as the earliest instance of ethical controversy (Fluehr-Lobban 2002).

For each decade in the history of American anthropology, four primary questions are analyzed following Mark Glazier’s (1996) superb overview of the subject: Are researchers invariably exploiting the people they study, and if so, how can this be minimized? Do the subjects benefit from the research in ways that they themselves consider meaningful and fair? Does the researcher adequately respect the integrity of the subjects’ culture, avoid undue interference, and minimize disturbance? How are anthropologists held accountable for their behavior, research, and publications?

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (2002) asserts that “The development of an ethically conscious culture that promotes discussion of ethically responsible decision-making still eludes us as a profession.” Nevertheless, as Pat Caplan (2003:3) profoundly observes: “Yet the ethics of anthropology is clearly not just about obeying a set of guidelines; it actually goes to the heart of the discipline; the premises on which its practitioners operate, its epistemology, theory and praxis. In other words, what is anthropology for? Who is it for?” These two questions are repeatedly discussed throughout my course.

The central pivotal goal of professional ethics has long been to try to avoid causing harm to research subjects. However, Laura Graham (2006) argues that anthropologists as humanistic scientists are also obligated to do good, especially when working with marginal and vulnerable populations like indigenes and minorities, and most of all when there are human rights violations. Fluehr-Lobban (2006) claims that this is a matter of personal choice, not an ethical obligation. Yet in 1979 the Belmont Report of the N