After the rekindled debate over anthropology’s moral core, the erudite discussion about the politics o […]

Ah, but I’m not saying that the fieldworker should blindly promise benefits without explicitly saying what they will be. It’s not even a question of “benefits” being given by the researcher, like some kind of token. It’s a question of the research shedding light on a issue that is important to the community, something that matters to them, as opposed to something that only interests people on the outside who want to “study” them as one would study laboratory mice.

Ok, I may be taking your use of the term “benefit” too literally. However, I am concerned about the rest of your comment. I’m not convinced that anthropologically there is anything intrinsically better in shedding light on something important to a community, than there is to doing anthropology which is absolutely neutral in terms of benefit to a community. Ethically, I think it may be better than doing something that is detrimental to a community, but I don’t see why my assessment of an anthropological project in terms of its successfulness necessarily includes any moral aesthetic. Perhaps I think in terms of people as laboratory rats (its these damn hominins I study. They’ve warped my brain).

Secondly, doesn’t saying you want to do something which is a positively integrated project within the community’s ideas of what is important limit your ability to describe the structures of power, and mystification which exist in regards to the community itself? Isn’t doing so, in essence, culturally conservative (with a small “c”)? Doesn’t this limit anthropology’s potentiality for subversion*?

* I wouldn’t argue that anthropology is essentially subversive, but that anthropology has many potentialities. This one doesn’t seem to be being expressed much in this debate.

NT Week in Review Vol. I, Issue 5 Despite working my posterior off at the yacht club over the past couple of days (and the 4th isn’t even until tomorrow!), I have a quality list of blog posts and news…

Do you consider this discussion of inherent morality as backwarded, as regressive, as if Anthros toke up the criticism (by “hard sciences”) they ve struggeled hardly to overcome by decades and even not yet have fully succeeded? Am I wrong understanding your arguments considering oneman`s aim as counterproductive?

This should be figured out before the research is done, not in hindsight. Again, in my own work, this is something I plan on figuring out more concretely, with Cree input, before I go back and do further research there.

I certainly don’t think it would be OK for me to go there and use them as data without their community getting some kind of benefit. I’m still working out what exactly that benefit could be but it’s certainly a priority for me.

Look, I used the urban ethnography as an example because its something I’ve come across, and its an important issue and outlines the point that simply that because “many” groups feel misrepresented, doesn’t necessarily presuppose that many groups have been misrepresented.

Now, I don’t know about your research with the Cree, but say you went into work with Group X, some of whom you got on with, some of whom you didn’t and thought were reprehensible (as you’d expect, really). You feel that they should get some benefit from your research, but after a while, you can’t work out what it is. Representatives of Group X start to feel chafed at this, because you said you’d give them some benefit, and you haven’t. And then you decide to give them what you consider to be a benefit to them, but they don’t agree. From their perspective, it seems like you misrepresented yourself to them, violated your agreement, and, by deigning to give them what you consider to be an acceptable repayment, have in fact just become the latest in a long line of imperialists paying them off with some more bloody beads. They don’t want what you’ve given them. They want you promoting their political position. This is a muddle, and I don’t see any way out of it for the moral position.

I think this is a very different question from the social good that anthropology supposedly provides the community as a whole.

I agree, but I think there’s a mediating factor — what anthropologists believe is the social good they provide in their society. The values which inform anthropology stem more from that — as in the case of the human rights workers I just mentioned whose recording practices are as thorough and accurate as possible because their ultimate goal is to stop human rights abuses and to persecute those that occur. Falsifying data might seem to make more sense in terms of the short-term persecution of some scumbag or other, but in the long-term, would hinder their efforts more than help them, and of course, people’s lives are literally at stake. Remember, if you can, the outcry over David Stoll’s attack on Rigoberto Menchu’s fabrications.

And:

Finally, Anthropologists have very diverse political ideologies, even if the majority are on the “left.” It seems to me that the same moral values will mean very different things to people based on their own political philosophy as to how best to bring about their own ideal world.

Yes — after all, morality is not an etched in stone kind of thing (America’s fundamentalists excepted) — it is a process of interpreting, enacting, and balancing often conflicting claims. Take Felix Moos (please!) — though as conservative as I am liberal, I’m sure that he would not dare falsify data any more than I would, and I’d bet that, if pressed, his vision of a pluralistic society looks a lot like mine, though we obviously imagine very different ways of getting there.

It is precisely the ethnographer who produces the most judicious and disinterested work—not the ‘political’ one—who is most empowered to speak when acting in their capacity as a public intellectual (assuming this is something that they value doing). Nancy describes this approach perfectly—a researcher with a political interest does as impartial work as possible so that their impartial findings can then be used in other spheres of life. Boas would agree.

Somewhere along the line, as Nancy pointed out, my argument has been twisted from “we exercise neutrality in the field because we think it’s better to provide as fair and honest a representation of the people we study as possible” to “it’s ok to lie, cheat, and steal as long as it advances your particular agenda”. Both of these statements are, of course, based on appeals to particular moral claims, but it is the first — which nestles closely to what Nancy said — that I feel is essential to anthropology, and which I see reflected in the practices of most anthropologists. Look — nobody advocates impartial and accurate reporting more than human rights workers, who realize that their work not only has to convince a reading public but possibly a jury, but I don’t think we would say that their interest was mere curiosity.

Also:

…none of my account of what constitutes ‘social good’ are drawn from the discipline of anthropology. They are drawn from from the values of my community.

Anthropology, like every other discipline, is embedded in society (or societies, though I agree with Nancy that it still betrays the traces of its origin in Western society) — I don’t see that the fact that some of the values that anthropology realizes are external to anthropology or are not solely held by anthropologists invalidates what I’m saying.

And:

I think it is a little sad that you see all of the possible modalities of civic engagement available to an anthropologist collapsed into the act of fieldwork.

I’m not sure what you mean by this — I thought I was pretty clear that I was speaking of practices ranging from grant-writing to fieldwork to writing-up to teaching.

And saying that we should avoid gross misrepresentation and take our informants seriously has nothing to do with assuming that they are all “nice.” Niceness has nothing to do with anything. *Some* of the Cree that I met discriminated against local Inuit residents so I personally did not feel that these individuals were all that nice. I also didn’t think it was nice that *some* Cree had prejudice against their own people who had problems with alcohol. But this doesn’t make all the actions committed against the Cree by the Canadian and Quebec governments OK nor does it make it OK for *some* anthropologists to have used the Cree and their culture for their own professional benefit. I certainly don’t think it would be OK for me to go there and *use* them as data without their community getting some kind of benefit. I’m still working out what exactly that benefit could be but it’s certainly a priority for me.

Now, as to the repeated comments by (I don’t remember who) that local interests should have no bearing on our research: well, guess what? It’s quite possible that this very attitude could prevent one from even gaining overt access to the field. If the anthropologist is only there to “create knowledge” without any intention of that knowledge being useful for the host community somehow, and in some cases going directly against the wishes of the community, why the heck would said communities agree to have anthropologists there at all?

There is always covert research. I suppose if there are no morals involved in anthropology, this would be considered OK. Or would it?

why we should cheerlead for Dr. Political, who goes into Orania, is sensitive to the wishes of the lovely far-right Afrikaans living there and produces a lovely moral pamphlet on their behalf which would make Stalin proud

The reason why I brought up the above example, is an argument against something that Nancy discussed:

Well, here’s my 2 cents again: who gives academics (anthropologists) the right to create knowledge at the (sometimes) expense of other humans? If many groups “under study” by anthropology have objected to the practice, have felt violated, have felt misrepresented, have questioned our motives . . . shouldn’t that be enough to see that there is a need to align research goals with community interests?

Now I’d content that there’s no absolute reason why anthropologists should feel guilty for the above. I think it falls down on the assumption that the people we study are somehow necessarily “nice”, or that their feeling “misrepresented” or “violated” (I think all ethnography has the potential to “violate” someone’s beliefs/conceptions in a general sense, but only in the sense that I think all human interaction has the potential to “violate” someone’s beliefs/conceptions) isn’t actually a means of promoting a political perspective with the anthropologist as their voicebox. I’d contend that while this sounds nice and lovely (and it obviously isn’t for urban ethnographers and other social scientists who study far-right groups and neo-fascists etc), this can also serve to mystify the possibility of understanding the power relations within the society itself and reify the positions of the brokers of that power: the primary informants of that ethnography.

Of course, Dr Objectivity may not reveal all possible things s/he has described, due to ethical constraints of his funding bodies (etc), the reason they would follow that would be out of pragmatism, and not necessarily her/his moral convictions. The ethical contraints themselves may indeed be pragmatic, not morally based.
Yet her/his account overcomes the problems with mystification through morally-induced attempts to overcome “misrepresentation”.
Dr Political, on the other hand, is royally screwed.

Interestingly, I see this the other way around. Orania isn’t much different from any more or less homogenous small town, even down to the local currency (Wikipedia lists over 70 local currencies in the US alone). The only difference is the moral dimension. I actually wouldn’t mind giving Orania a looksee. But here’s the thing—Dr. Objectivity, constrained to “mere description”, can only describe the particular beliefs that have led to the community’s origin; any critique (and this is my general point not only about Orania but anthro as a whole) must necessarily be along some moral line (given that there’s no reason it shouldn’t function as well as any other homogenous community, regardless of their ideological concerns). It is Dr. Political, not Dr. Objectivity, who has the potential to go beyond the depiction of happy Oranians without a care in the world.

The problem is twofold.
One, a critique of Orania need not be predicated along moral lines (it only has to be if you insist on the insertion of a priori moral categories – ie you’ve decided that any critique even if it is in itself a critique entirely derived along different lines, economic let’s say, must in some sense be moral*). So the intervention of morally weighted categories need not appear. Second, both Dr Objectivity and Dr Political have the potential to go beyond mere description. The difference is, I wouldn’t expect this potential to be an influence in Dr Objectivity’s ethnographic work. Dr Political has already said it is, and doesn’t see what’s wrong with it. In the previous entry you did on this subject, you wanted some description of something you found morally odious to be suffixed with “and its wrong!”. The obvious problem is this (from Rex):

Nancy describes this approach perfectly—a researcher with a political interest does as impartial work as possible so that their impartial findings can then be used in other spheres of life.

Obviously “and its wrong!” gets in the way of this use in other spheres. Instead of you impartial work informing your partial stance in other spheres, your partial work (which you totally acknowledge to be partial) informs you partial stance.

The odd thing is that there are definitions of objectivity lurking about all over the place (The use of the term “impartial” in the above). Here’s one:

That said, I’m assuming Dr. P goes into it with the same stance of withheld judgment and attemppted neutrality that we as a discipline demand for adequate description.

I wish there weren’t two definitions of objectivity, one that exists for the rest of mankind, and one which appears to exist solely within social anthropology.
The first looks like what’s described in the above. It goes something like “attempted neutrality in the description of things pertaining to the object of study”. Y’see I’m currently studying** teeth in Plio-Pleistocene hominins and I have to deal with (the effects of, in a metrical dataset,) inter-observer error too. But these observers were striving for objectivity in the sense that I’ve described.
At no point does anyone work with the soc anth description: “With my objective nature I stand above thee object of study and I understand everything about it, LIKE A GOD!! BWAHAHAHAHA!” whilst twirling their positivist moustaches***.

* If you think that, then I don’t think there’s any way you can derive validation of that concept from any evidence.

** Evil positivist scientist aren’t I? Er, no. I used to study ethnographic film and make video installations and stuff.

*** Apart from late period Comte.
And he wouldn’t know anything about teeth.
And he’s been dead for 150 years.
And he didn’t have a moustache.

Interestingly, I see this the other way around. Orania isn’t much different from any more or less homogenous small town, even down to the local currency (Wikipedia lists over 70 local currencies in the US alone). The only difference is the moral dimension. I actually wouldn’t mind giving Orania a looksee. But here’s the thing—Dr. Objectivity, constrained to “mere description”, can only describe the particular beliefs that have led to the community’s origin; any critique (and this is my general point not only about Orania but anthro as a whole) must necessarily be along some moral line (given that there’s no reason it shouldn’t function as well as any other homogenous community, regardless of their ideological concerns). It is Dr. Political, not Dr. Objectivity, who has the potential to go beyond the depiction of happy Oranians without a care in the world.

The problem is twofold.
One, a critique of Orania need not be predicated along moral lines (it only has to be if you insist on the insertion of a priori moral categories – ie you’ve decided that any critique even if it is in itself a critique entirely derived along different lines, economic let’s say, must in some sense be moral*). So the intervention of morally weighted categories need not appear. Second, both Dr Objectivity and Dr Political have the potential to go beyond mere description. The difference is, I wouldn’t expect this potential to be an influence in Dr Objectivity’s ethnographic work. Dr Political has already said it is, and doesn’t see what’s wrong with it. In the previous entry you did on this subject, you wanted some description of something you found morally odious to be suffixed with “and its wrong!”. The obvious problem is this (from Rex:

Nancy describes this approach perfectly—a researcher with a political interest does as impartial work as possible so that their impartial findings can then be used in other spheres of life

Obviously “and its wrong!” gets in the way of this use in other spheres.

The odd thing is that there are definitions of objectivity lurking about all over the place. Here’s one:

That said, I’m assuming Dr. P goes into it with the same stance of withheld judgment and attemppted neutrality that we as a discipline demand for adequate description.

I wish there weren’t two definitions of objectivity, one that exists for the rest of mankind, and one which appears to exist solely within social anthropology.
The first looks like what’s described in the above. It goes something like “attempted neutrality in the description of things pertaining to the object of study”. Y’see I’m currently studying** teeth in Plio-Pleistocene hominins and I have to deal with (the effects of, in a metrical dataset,) inter-observer error too. But these observers were striving for objectivity in the sense that I’ve described.
At no point does anyone work with the soc anth description: “With my objective nature I stand above thee object of study and I understand everything about it, LIKE A GOD!! BWAHAHAHAHA! whilst twirling their positivist moustaches***.

* If you think that, then I don’t think there’s any way you can derive validation of that concept from any evidence.

** Evil positivist scientist aren’t I? Er, no. I used to study ethnographic film and make video installations and stuff.

*** Apart from late period Comte. And he wouldn’t know anything about teeth. And he’s been dead for 150 years. And he didn’t have a moustache.

Oh, certainly. That’s why I don’t feel that there is necessarily a common “moral core” in the practice . . . everyone has a different reason for doing it. Nonetheless, everyone has *a* reason for doing it. Sometimes the reasons are more similar than we think; as we’ve seen in this thread, positions that looked radically different at the outset seem to (“se rejoindre” . . damn, I can’t think of the expression in English . . . “) meet up (?) somewhere.

As for providing open access to fieldnotes . . I still have to think about that one. I’m not against it in principle. I’m just not sure it would be practical for all methods of “notetaking”.