Ku SE HT 16 Undervisningstillflle 5 ETNOGRAFI OCH

Ku. SE HT 16 Undervisningstillfälle 5 ETNOGRAFI OCH ETIK

Etiska dilemman – hur skulle du ha gjort? • • Ni delas in i 4 grupper och får med er varsitt ”fall” Utse en ordförande som initierar diskussion och fördelar ordet. Läs ”fallet” högt tillsammans eller tyst, var för sig. Diskutera i ca 10 minuter hur ni skulle agerat. Varför? Ni behöver inte vara överens i gruppen. Bolla gärna er diskussion och ert tänkta agerande mot AAA codex. Öppna det förseglade kuvertet och se hur forskaren i detta fall löste situationen. Vad tycker ni? Gjorde hen rätt? Överensstämmer det med hur ni skulle ha gjort? ----Vi återsamlas 13. 15 och varje grupp berättar om sitt fall, hur ni har diskuterat möjliga lösningar på dilemmat och vad ni tycker om forskarens agerande.

Case 1: To Medicate or Not to Medicate Terry Kelly received a National Institute of Mental Health grant for research in the Western Tropics. As part of her personal gear, she took along a considerable amount of medication, which her physician had prescribed for use, should Kelly find herself in an active malaria region. Later, after settling into a village, Kelly became aware that many of the local people were quite ill with malaria. Kelly's Dilemma: Since she had such a large supply of medication, much more than she needed for her personal use, should she distribute the surplus to her hosts? Kelly's Decision Kelly decided not to give any medication to the villagers who were exhibiting symptoms of malaria, even though she had a considerable surplus in her personal supply. She reasoned that since the medication did not confer permanent immunity to the disease and because she would not be present to provide medication during future outbreaks of the disease, it was more important to allow affected villagers to develop their own resistance to malaria "naturally.

Case 3: Witness to Murder Mary Thompson had been conducting fieldwork in a Southeast Asian community for 18 months. Her house was ideally located on the edge of the village plaza, allowing her to readily observe daily activities that took place in the plaza. In addition to gatherings of women who shared food preparation tasks and talk, and groups of men working individually on carvings, the plaza was regularly a gathering place for men at night. One night while Thompson was working up some statistical problems in her house, she was distracted by loud, seemingly argumentative discussions in the plaza. When the noise of the argument reached a high pitch, she decided to investigate the situation. Just as she stepped from her doorway, she saw one of the men in the group of five, angrily raise his machete and deliver a deadly blow to another--Tom--in the group. Stunned silence fell over the other three men, as they watched their companion quickly bleed to death before their eyes. Moments later people from the other homes began moving into the plaza in response to the wailing that came from the man who had wielded the machete. Mournful crying and wailing was carried throughout the village. The family members of the dead man carried him to their home and began funeral preparations. The next evening, Tom was buried. The man who had dealt the deadly blow was allowed to participate in the funeral and to make a death payment to the family of the deceased. Two days after the funeral, three regional policemen came to the village. As part of a new governmental program designed to reduce blood feuds, the regional authorities now regularly sought to arrest and jail people who were involved in killings. They had heard about the recent death. They began questioning the villagers in an attempt to determine if Tom had been "murdered. " Thompson had written a detailed description of the events of the night of Tom's death in her notebook which contained a running record of village activities. Thompson's Dilemma: (1) Since she knew the police would question her, should she quickly tear out and destroy the pages in her notebook where the events were recorded? (2) When questioned by the police should she, like the other villagers, plead ignorance concerning the killing? Thompson's Decision Thompson decided to risk discovery of her field notes and consequently hid the notebook containing the description of the events surrounding Tom's death under coverings on her bed. When police asked her if she knew anything about Tom's death, she denied having any knowledge of the events of that evening. The police accepted her statements and did not search for her field notes.

Case 8: The Case of the Missing Artifact For his own aesthetic purposes, Marcus Randolph had collected Pueblo Indian arts and crafts for many years before becoming an anthropologist. Randolph's fieldwork sites for ten years were located in Latin America. However, as a result of personal contacts, he was asked to conduct a brief ethnohistorical study in one of the Rio Grande pueblos. As his study progressed, he learned that an important item had been missing for about 20 years from the collection of paraphernalia used by one of the religious leaders in the community. According to this individual, ceremonies had never been complete since the item had disappeared. Crop failures and other community problems were partially attributed to this loss. After obtaining a full description from the religious leader and checking this against information about the item with colleagues in local museums and universities, Randolph realized that there was a good chance that the item in question was at least similar to, if not identical to, one he had purchased 15 years previously from a trading post. Randolph's Dilemma: Should he offer the item in his possession to the religious leader? Should he even show the item to the religious leader? Or, should he simply make a note regarding the missing religious piece and not disclose his personal possession to anyone in the community? Randolph's Decision During the time that Randolph was considering this problem, he learned that over a 30 to 50 year period, several regional museums had acquired a great quantity of religious items from many different Pueblo Indians. He told religious and political elders in the community where he was working about the items he had seen in these museums and asked if their absence from the Pueblos had any adverse effects on the communities and whether or not they wanted to reclaim them from the museums. The opinions expressed by elders were that (a) the loss of these items was part of the loss of cultural heritage that could not be reclaimed, so (b) there was no value in asking the museums to return the items to them (at least not at this point in time). On the basis of these discussions, Randolph decided not to disclose his personal possession to anyone in the community, but kept a record in his field notes regarding his investigations into and discoveries of "missing" religious and other material culture items.

Case 9: "Hot" Gifts Rose Stone moved into an urban ghetto in order to study strategies for survival used by low-income residents. During the first six months of research, Stone was gradually integrated into the community through invitations (which she accepted) to attend dances, parties, church functions, and family outings, and by "hanging out" at local service facilities (laundromats, health centers, recreation centers, and so on). She was able to discern that there were two important survival tactics used by the community residents which she could not engage in: the first was a system of reciprocity in the exchange of goods and services (neither of which she felt she had to offer), and the second was outright theft of easily pawned or sold goods (clothing, jewelry, radios, TVs, and so on). One night, a friend from the community stopped by "for a cup of coffee" and conversation. After they had been talking for about two hours, Stone's friend told her that she had some things she wanted to give her. The friend went out to her car and returned with a box of clothing (Stone's size) and a record player. Stone was a bit overwhelmed by the generosity of the gift and protested her right to accept such costly items. Her friend laughed and said, "Don't you worry, it's not out of my pocket, " but then she became more serious and said, "Either you are one of us or you aren't one of us. You can't have it both ways. " Stone's Dilemma: Suspecting that the items she was being offered were probably "hot" (e. g. , stolen), she was afraid that if she wore the clothes in public, or had the record player in her apartment, she would be arrested for "accepting stolen goods. " At the same time, she knew that "hot" items were often given to close friends when it was observed that they could use them. Still, this implied that there would be reciprocal giving (not necessarily in kind) at a later date. So, should she accept or refuse the proffered gifts? Stone's Decision Stone decided to accept the clothing, but not the record player. She made her case for the decision this way: she was in need of a warm coat, wool slacks, and sweaters. These attractive items would be worn during her work periods in the community (and at other times). When she received compliments on them, she could acknowledge acceptance of the gifts from her friend, thereby notifying people that she had accepted entry into the social credit system with an obligation to repay the gifts at a later date. She told her friend that she did not have use for a record player since she seldom had time to listen to the few records she owned. She suggested another individual to whom her friend might give the record player. Her friend was satisfied with the compromise. Before her fieldwork was completed she had numerous opportunities to fulfill these obligations. Some examples of repayment included: childsitting for a relative of a friend, lending money to another relative, and providing transportation to a distant city for her friend, among others.