I hear that the 80's was a period when anthro engaged in a lot of introspection- so I guess I'm proposing an 80's night of hand wringing. Hit it!
I'll offer a presumptive boundary on one end of this with some straight positivism. We do have the ability and justification to condemn certain aspects of tradition and change them if we are in a position to. Child soldiers, institutionalized rape, female circumcision, nationalism, environmentally unsustainable practices, etc etc are all bad. We can be fairly sure that with enough time, this will all become painfully obvious, but time is something of relatively grave importance right now, esp. with respect to environmental issues. I am pretty sure environmental issues will necessitate the deemphasis of strong humanist concerns at some point, and this is another big question to keep in mind.
I guess my remaining question is how to go about affecting change best. I think we can probably rule out violence, right...?
I'll offer a presumptive boundary on one end of this with some straight positivism. We do have the ability and justification to condemn certain aspects of tradition and change them if we are in a position to. Child soldiers, institutionalized rape, female circumcision, nationalism, environmentally unsustainable practices, etc etc are all bad. We can be fairly sure that with enough time, this will all become painfully obvious, but time is something of relatively grave importance right now, esp. with respect to environmental issues. I am pretty sure environmental issues will necessitate the deemphasis of strong humanist concerns at some point, and this is another big question to keep in mind.
I guess my remaining question is how to go about affecting change best. I think we can probably rule out violence, right...?
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Re: Ethics 'n Anthro
Sat, March 5, 2005 - 4:04 PMWell, if we're going to go around presuming that we can condemn certain things, (and I'll agree with you in a limited fashion here), then I think we should recognize a return to the original anthropological practice of collecting information on a people for later "exploitation" - hopefully in our case, not for nationalistic/colonial purposes, but generally the same thing...
um "to better the living circumstances of the peoples" (probably quoting someone or other... )
yeah.
no solutions here currently.
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Unsu...
Re: Ethics 'n Anthro
Sat, March 5, 2005 - 5:58 PMFor the part of anthropology which I think about, one of the most interesting ethical questions is, what right does the anthropologist have to gather sacred stories and try to analyze them for his own purposes? If you are a linguist, or a structural anthropologist, the way you look at myths, stories, folk tales just can not be the same as the way a native owner of the story looks at the story. This is partially offset by simple love and interest in the stories. Show an interest in something special, and people respond favorably. And maybe many people realize the stories themselves are strong, and can outlast the tinkering of an anthropologist, I hope.
But when it comes to the question of how to go about affecting change, I don't know... Look here at a fantasy: Say an international oil company has discovered oil in an untouched area of the Amazon. Say they offer a job to anthropologists to live with the native people and gather data for 3 months, or 6 months, $175 dollars a day, with the end result being a report with recommendations on how to develop the oil with the least resistance and disturbance from the native people. Things like avoiding sacred sites or hunting and farming sites, ways to mitigate social disruption, things like that. (I've never heard of an oil company actually doing this.) Would you take the job? (Yes, I probably would.) Is it wrong? -
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Re: Ethics 'n Anthro
Sun, March 6, 2005 - 11:41 AMum, what about those people's rights to the oil under their land??? -
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Re: Ethics 'n Anthro
Sun, March 6, 2005 - 12:31 PMI've got to agree with you on this one Miriam. The oil doesn't belong to the oil company, but to the people who's land it is located in. The oil company doesn't have rights to it, if it goes untapped, so much the better.
So, I guess that my answer is no, I would take the job and personally, I don't think that it's ethical in the realm of anthropology. To use the knowledge of/about a people for exploitation of them or their land. I won't get into the environmental ramifications of oil mining, or the likely social ramifications on the people. -
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Unsu...
Re: Ethics 'n Anthro
Sat, March 12, 2005 - 11:56 AMYes, the responses are largely in the right: it is not very ethical to help the oil company in the fantasy example above.
I can rationalize it by saying one may hope to act as a mediator between the native people and the operators of the industrial world. And contribute a little to a softening effect in the environmental and social impact. And it would be exciting (heartbreaking too maybe) to be there and see what really happens.
People (biologists and environmental scientists mainly) do similar work all the time in reality. Environmental impact statements, endangered species rules, CEQA and NEPA document preparation, all that sort of work.
The resources do truly belong to the native people and to world heritage.
However, the legal position of the invading oil company would be to deal exclusively with the national/state government structure of the country in question. The oil company would assume the native people have political representation and rights exerted through the national government. Even if not true, the company assumes this, and makes its deals with national power holders, thereby ignoring local conditions and local people. I think that's the way it works, maybe i'm wrong. So an oil company would never even take the most minor listening steps as outlined in the fantasy.
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Many other ethical questions are still open...
like changing certain aspects of tradition as questioned in the original post... -
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Re: Ethics 'n Anthro
Sat, April 30, 2005 - 1:18 PMhello.. first time poster.
i have heard some things about this sort of issue recently in south america. supposedly, the government had already given rights to the oil companies (due to the fact that this country has an extremely high national debt) without getting the consent of the natives that live on the land in question. This brings up another issue, I think. I know someone who is very concerned about 'peak oil' and according to the information he's given me, this is such a huge problem and that rapid depletion of these kinds of natural resources could happen so quickly that we might not have time to adjust.
To be honest, I do not know if I believe everything he says, but when faced with this possibility, and the issue of preserving native rights and lands over a planetary crisis...what should be done? Of course this is more of a concern for people who live in countries more dependant on oil. And I'm aware there are certain things that can be done to help prevent such a crisis (research into alt. fuels etc) but who knows how quickly that will happen.
I guess I'm just curious about what others might think about this issue. I'm not sure I do, myself.
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Unsu...
Re: Ethics 'n Anthro
Thu, April 28, 2005 - 8:54 AMThis is an interesting thread. I think in reality were this to happen that the ruling government and the oil company would do as they pleased regardless of the native peoples. I could see an oil company hiring an anthropologist to gather information as a token to placate the locals and human rights groups but in the end the government of the country would have the final decision and unfortunately most government decisions are biased in favor of making money.
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