working toward an ethical anthropology: where do we go from here?

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Working toward an Ethical Anthropology

Where Do We Go from Here?

BEVERLEE BRUCEa

Social Science Research Council, New York, New York 10019, USA

ABSTRACT: This article posits an ethical anthropology for the 21st centurythat addresses and informs our understanding of international conflict sit-uations and their solutions while providing methodologies for anthropolo-gists of color to position their issues of concern at the center of socialscience discourse.

KEYWORDS: American Anthropological Association; Global humanitar-ian crises and population displacement; “Native” anthropologists; Anthro-pologists of color

I intend to address the question of where we should go in working toward anethical anthropology from two perspectives: one global, the other local (do-mestic). First, as an anthropologist who has worked outside the academy incountries receiving humanitarian and/or development aid and assistance, I amconvinced that classical anthropological perspectives and methodologies areneeded to inform both theory and practice in explaining the social contexts inwhich countries require such support and in describing culturally relevantways to respond. Second, as an anthropologist of color, I am heartened by ourincreasing numbers in the discipline, but chastened by the fact that many ofthe issues addressed within our ranks today are identical to those raised byearlier generations (Harrison and Harrison 1999: 4,6).

That these perspectives are linked speaks to both the history of anthropol-ogy and its methodological possibilities. For in founding the discipline, West-ern anthropologists conducted ethnographic fieldwork among “native”peoples in the wake of Western conquest in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.Today, increasing numbers of intra-state wars are taking place, primarily informer Asian and African colonies, but also in Europe and the Americas aswell as the Middle East (Forman and Patrick 2000: 3).

Predictably, there is a quandary about what to do and how, which is whereanthropology and its methodological possibilities assume relevance. In the

aAddress for correspondence: SSRC, 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019.

188 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

context of the quandary, a recurring theme in the literature on “complex hu-manitarian emergencies” and their aftermath is the necessity for building“local capacities” to ensure long-term development (Forman and Patrick2000: 15–16).

Clearly, the social reforms sought by members of the international commu-nity can be negotiated, but successful implementation will occur where thereis an anthropological perspective that builds on the strengths of the local cul-ture and that recognizes that there are “native” anthropologists among the af-fected population.

How ironic that the discipline which accompanied the subjugation of“backward races” is the discipline to provide the tools for “native” anthropol-ogists to liberate themselves and the communities they represent in situationsemerging from conflict, both abroad and here in the United States, as thenumber of anthropologists of color continues to increase.

THE ETHICAL CONTEXT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

The Global Perspective

Historically, anthropology has demonstrated its characterization as a “re-former’s science” by its response to destructive nationalism, its challenge to“scientific racism” and eventually by its adoption of a contemporary Code ofEthics informed by such UN codes of ethics as the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights (1948), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms ofDiscrimination Against Women (CEDAW 1983), the Convention on theRights of the Child (1987), and the Declaration on the Rights of IndigenousPeoples. Still, the question remains of how anthropology has addressed thehumanistic concerns evident in this sequence of events in its departments,curricula, journals, conferences, and position statements. For we need toknow the context in which knowledge production about the impact of human-itarian crises and ethnic conflict on development processes in evolving na-tion-states will take place.

The Domestic Perspective

To its credit, the American Anthropological Association is an inclusive or-ganization. For example, its 34 sections and 6 interest groups include, amongothers, the Associations for Africanist Anthropology, of Black Anthropolo-gists, for Feminist Anthropology, and of Latina and Latino Anthropologists.At the same time, the General Anthropology Division, which is one of thesections, includes the Committee on Refugees and Immigrants (CORI) andthe Federation of Small Anthropology Programs (FOSAP).

189BRUCE: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

In terms of governance, the Association has Committees on Ethics, the Sta-tus of Women in Anthropology, Minority Issues in Anthropology, Public Pol-icy, and a Committee for Human Rights. It has a Minority DissertationFellowship Program, which made its first award in 1999, and an elected seaton the Association’s Executive Committee for a minority representative.

In recent statements that began in January 1994 and concluded in April2000 and that cover a wide variety of issues including peace negotiations, theprosecution of war criminals in territories of the former Yugoslavia, and evo-lution, the Association demonstrates the wide range of concerns addressed byits membership. And, finally, the Association’s president and program chair,in addressing the theme for the 99th Annual Meeting, underscored the disci-pline’s importance described above.

Since its inception anthropology has long been concerned with and contributedgreatly to our understanding of humanity. Building upon this tradition, thetheme of the 2000 meeting is…“the Public Face of Anthropology in the Mil-lennium.” We envision participants extending anthropology’s contributions byfocusing even greater attention to our disciplines’ ability to shed light on com-plex issues affecting people’s lives both here in the U.S. and abroad (Lamphereand Ragone 2000:1)

THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION OF ANTHROPOLOGY INTHE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

At the end of the Cold War, social commentators who spoke of a peace div-idend that would translate into significant development assistance for the glo-bal South led social reformers to anticipate the eventual elimination ofsocietal inequities (Forman and Patrick 2000: 2; Weiss and Collins 1996: 30–36). Today, observers look on in dismay as civil wars, in which civilians—particularly vulnerable populations of women, children, and the elderly—aretargets of marauding rebel and guerilla groups and, in too many cases, gov-ernment troops as well. Rather than throw our hands up in despair, anotherapproach is to look to social science, in general, and to anthropology, in par-ticular, in the search for knowledge about the global human condition as weask the following questions:

1. What do we know about human behavior that explains present circum-stances?

2. Where is knowledge produced about human behavior that explainspresent circumstances?

3. And most important, how does that knowledge expand our understand-ing of human behavior in terms of prediction and explanation, whilealso suggesting practical responses in terms of solutions?


On the basis of its humanistic tradition and modes of inquiry, anthropologyprovides space for anthropologists to examine the social and cultural realitiesthat constitute human experience and to raise questions—addressed in thecontext of discussions assessing the impact of globalization on local realities—about state authority, group formation, group participation, and democra-tization. Given such a conceptual framework, comparative studies of ethnicconflict in search of insights about the nature of armed conflict, of populationdisplacement, of social disintegration, and of the eventual reintegration thatleads, finally, to social reconstruction, can result in the articulation of explan-atory theoretical paradigms that provide the basis for addressing 21st centurydilemmas.

Much of what we know about global humanitarian crises is produced bysuch UN agencies as UNHCR, UNICEF and UNDP; by bilateral and multi-lateral donors such as USAID, GTZ, and ECHO; and by NGOs such as theICG, the USCR, and the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women andChildren.1 Nevertheless, it seems important to use the work of anthropolo-gists, who have studied ethnic groups affected by contemporary civil wars, toprovide a framework for understanding the dynamics of observed circum-stances, for example, the polarization of racial and ethnic relations in SouthAfrica (Kuper 1977) and ethnic genocide in Burundi (Lemarchand 1977,1993, 1996).

Root causes and durable solutions are two concepts that permeate the lit-erature about displaced populations (Forbes Martin 1991: 64–79; Rogers andCopeland 1993: 49–87; UNHCR 1995: 32–33). On the one hand, the questionof causal factors may require more time to determine than humanitarian reliefagencies can afford. But what of anthropologists who have conducted field-work in a given region, among a particular people, and in collecting data havelearned the history of the group and its interactions with related groups, aswell as with central, local and traditional authorities? For example Warrend’Azevedo (1972) has worked among the Gola in Liberia and John Gay andMichael Cole (1967) have worked among the Kepelle. Similarly, the questionof durable solutions requires the re-creation of a stable social environmentthat extends beyond the cease-fire, the peace agreement, disarmament and de-mobilization; that promotes reintegration, reconciliation and the fledglingsteps toward social reconstruction as well as the recovery of social values thatundergird social order.

Practitioners in the humanitarian relief community, many with degrees inthe social sciences, including anthropology, often see academics as too far re-moved from the practical to be useful. However, there are academics whosework refutes such an assumption, for example, Diane Baxter, the vice-chairof the Committee on Refugees and Immigrants and co-editor of Volume 5 ofBeyond Boundaries, V the committee’s selected papers series (Baxter andKrufeld 1997); Michael Horowitz (1986), the co-founder and co-director ofthe Institute for Development Anthropology at SUNY Binghamton, where re-


search on forced migration has been a primary focus since 1976 when thecenter was founded; and Gunther Schlee, the executive director of the MaxPlanck Institute for Social Anthropology, whose mission is to conduct re-search on the interaction of ethnic groups, primarily in Africa, “where prob-lems of integration and conflict are salient” (Schlee and Diallo 2000).

But in the search for solutions to the present quandary, a distinct possibilityis for collaboration between practitioners and social scientists, such that a re-search question is, or a series of interrelated research questions are, approachedfrom each of two perspectives utilizing a framework that boasts an ethical di-mension to yield both practical and theoretical outcomes (Dewind 2000).2

FROM THE MARGIN TO THE CENTER: ANTHROPOLOGYAND ETHNIC MINORITIES IN THE UNITED STATES

While it is true that anthropology is a discipline of choice for an increasingnumber of academics of color, there are still few, if any, anthropology depart-ments at historically black colleges and universities in the United States or atAfrican universities on the continent. In contrast, there are departments of so-ciology and anthropology as well as departments of sociology in both set-tings. The conventional wisdom is that anthropology’s history, its interest inthe exotic other, its focus on traditional societies and on culture make it lessappealing than sociology to blacks in higher education.

Even for students of color who have chosen anthropology as a career, theearly literature in the discipline is hard to take; especially when ethnogra-phers of the period describe their colonial subjects in terms that, by today’sstandards, are pejorative (Baker 1998). Nonetheless, reading about “back-ward races” and their inability to “wrap their thick lips around the pearlysounds of the English language” causes one to wonder about the impact suchoutmoded thinking has on the minds of contemporary anthropologists of anyage, gender, color, or class.

One of my informants3 expressed its effect on her as follows:

I chose anthropology because I hate anthropology. I am a first generation Mex-icana and college student, who, when exposed to social science literature onMexican Americans and other people of color, was appalled. I could not believehow “wrong headed” these academics were. Most of my undergraduate profes-sors treated me like an “uncivilized ghetto punk” who was just mad at the world.And I have to admit that back then I did not have the language skills to makecritical interventions. I did not know until I had taken the more advanced coursesthat there were those who wrote about the politics of representation, about un-equal power relations and the like. I found that many of the critics were, in myopinion, mainstream anthropologists who had merely “anticipated” a genre forit, especially since scholars of color were bringing up these very issues in jour-nals that were either not widely circulated or simply ignored (Garland 2000).


Clearly, this budding anthropologist has had to confront negative stereo-types about her, and about her reference group, as she navigated the terrain ofa new language and a new way of looking at the world in her undergraduateclassrooms. Only perseverance and the will to succeed allowed her to con-front and transcend a series of obstacles arrayed against her, and her “kind.”

Interestingly, a recent Ph.D. has a different but related take on the questionof the colonial legacy in anthropology:

There is no doubt that anthropology is a colonial discipline and in my classes Iam frank about it. I never deny the importance of the colonial objective in fuel-ing the discipline’s existence and I immediately position myself, quite contra-dictorily, in that context. That is, as a “native” anthropologist but aware that“native” itself is a colonial product and that nobody (or all of us are) is really“native” (Bennett 2000).

Still another informant chose anthropology to resurrect her “extinct” tribe:

I remember visiting the Southwest Museum when a friend asked the docent ifthere were any Mission Indians left. The docent replied that Mission Indianswere extinct. I was stunned. My family and I were alive, and we are Mission In-dians. Of course, the students believed the docent. When I identified myself asa Native American they called me a liar, because they believed all Indians wereextinct. In addition, I didn’t dress or look like the Indians they saw at the muse-um in the dioramas. From that day on, knowing the museum was wrong, I knewthat I had to change the information it provided the unsuspecting public. How-ever, it wasn’t until my freshman year in college, when I undertook independentresearch, that I found that one of the most respected ethnologists in California,Alfred Kroeber, was the first to say the Gabrielino no longer existed.

He had spoken to the last one in 1907. Clearly, the information on which themuseums based their interpretations was wrong. Consequently, I am committedto demonstrating that native people, and the Gabrielino specifically, are stillalive and well (Martin 2000).

In any event, for those scholars of color who choose anthropology, its meth-odology, its subject matter, and its possibilities are reasons for doing so. Thequalitative has more appeal than the quantitative, as does the substantive over,what one anthropologist of color sees as the superficial (Escobar 2000).4 Inmost cases, the tools and practices of anthropology—fieldwork, participantobservation, interviewing techniques, and confidentiality—as well as its ho-listic, comparative approach to understanding the human species, are regardedhighly, but the anthropological exercise also poses ethical challenges. Onesuch challenge occurs when working in one’s own community as the “other”and having to come to terms with the idea of an “objective” social science.

An informant’s point of view:

I decided to “do” anthropology because I, initially and naively, assumed that Icould speak for my gente (people). I now know that that is not an option, but Ican represent them better than many others who claim to write better ethno-graphic descriptions because of their “objectivity.” I do not think that anyone is


objective, although some scholars are incredibly clueless and distant from thereal issues (Garland).

But there is more to objectivity than the idea of it. There are consequencesthat the insider must constantly weigh. Two observations demonstrate thepoint. The first:

As a result of doing research on the Indian movement in Ecuador, I realized thatthe state or large estate holders could use any information I wrote about themagainst them. Consequently, I have been careful in contextualizing everythingI write or say about the movement while being conscious of not going alongwith the glorious story they expound about themselves (Bennet).

The second:I am preparing to tackle some serious issues about law enforcement and gov-ernment agencies in my community. On the one hand, a lot is going on in termsof sexism, fraud, and outright negligence by some of the men who are supposedto help battered women. On the other hand, because of my concern about theirsafety, there is little I can write about the women who are caught up in thesedynamics. I feel more than an ethical obligation, because my stance also has todo with being part of a community that is always vulnerable to heavily biased,outside judgment (Garland).

While both informants face an ethical dilemma in presenting all of the eth-nographic data from their fieldwork, the two situations differ. In the first in-stance, one surmises that every anthropologist would exhibit the samesensitivity and the same objectivity. For protecting the people one studies isparamount in the anthropological endeavor, even as you mediate the group’sself-serving evaluation of itself. In the second example, differences in ap-proach are likely to occur along both gender and/or racial lines.

CONCLUSION

An ethical anthropology, from the perspectives of understanding and ad-dressing root causes of communal violence in countries around the globe,particularly in Africa, and of providing space for anthropologists of color inthe U.S. to define and then address the issues of concern in their respectivecommunities has every chance of becoming an institutional reality during the21st century. The needs (as outlined in the introduction and overview sectionof this paper) and the structures (as outlined in the ethical context section) arethere as are increasing numbers of anthropologists from underrepresentedethnic groups in the United States. For according to the AAA Survey of An-thropology Ph.D.s (1997) the number of such anthropologists has increasedfrom 13% in 1990 to 15% in 1997.

Where anthropology goes from here depends on where the componentparts of the human family take it. Its traditions and its methods of inquiry are


expansive enough to include a multiplicity of possibilities. Those interestedin the international dimension of the global exercise need only establish sucha field of inquiry through collaborative research that includes a variety of par-ticipants from a variety of sites where knowledge production is taking place.In the matter of underrepresented ethnic groups in the United States, movingfrom the margin to the center requires only a shift in perspective. For peopleof color are majorities in the world and need only to see themselves globallyrather than locally to be the center (Williams 2000).5

REFERENCES

BAKER, LEE D. 1998. From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction ofRace, 1896–1954. Berkeley, California: University of California Press

BAXTER, DIANE AND RUTH KRUFELD, Eds. Beyond Boundaries (Volume 5: SelectedPapers). Committee on Refugees and Immigrants, General Division, AmericanAnthropological Association.

D’AZEVEDO, WARREN. 1972. The Gola of Liberia. New Haven: H.R.A.F. Inc.DEWIND, ADRIAN. 2000. Forced Migration and Human Rights. New York: Social

Social Science Research Council.FORMAN, SHEPARD AND STEWART PATRICK, Eds. 2000. Good Intentions: Pledges of

Aid for Postconflict Recovery. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.GAY, JOHN AND MICHAEL COLE. 1967. The New Mathematics and an Old Culture:

A Study of Learning Among the Kpelle of Liberia. New York: Holt, Rinehart andWinston.

HARRISON, IRA E. AND FAYE HARRISON, Eds. 1999. African American Pioneers inAnthropology. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

HOROWITZ, MICHAEL, Ed. 1986. Anthropology and Rural Development in WestAfrica. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

KUPER, LEO. 1977. The Pity of it All: Polarisation of Racial and Ethnic Relations.London: Duckworth.

LAMPHERE, LOUISE AND HELENA RAGONE. 2000. AAA Annual Meeting Theme.>http://www.ameranthassn.org/mtgs/theme2000.htm.

LEMARCHAND, RENE. 1977. African Kingships in Perspective: Political Change andModernization in Monarchical Settings. London: Frank Cass Publications.

———. 1993. Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.

———. 1996. Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

MARTIN, SUSAN FORBES. 1992. Refugee Women. London: Zed Books.ROGERS, ROSEMARY AND EMILY COPELAND. 1993. Forced Migration: Policy Issues

in the Post-Cold War World. Medford, Massachusetts: The Fletcher School ofLaw and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

SCHLEE, GUNTHER, AND YOUSSOUF DIALLO. 2000. L’Ethnicité Peule dans des Con-textes Nouveaux. Paris: Karthala.

UNHCR. 1995. State of the World’s Refugees: In Search of Solutions. Oxford:Oxford University Press.


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NOTES

1. Abbreviations used in this paper include: ECHO, European CommunityHumanitarian Office; GTZ, German Government Development Agency; ICC,International Crisis Group; NGO, non-governmental organization; UNDP,United Nations Development Programme; UNHCR, United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees; UNICEF, United Nations Children’s EmergencyFund; USAID, U.S. Agency for International Development; USCR, U.S.Committee for Refugees.

2. A research proposal submitted to and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foun-dation. The research involves UNHCR and four NGOs: CARE, the Interna-tional Rescue Committee, the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, andthe Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children addressing aparticular set of questions related to forced migrants using a human rightsframework in determining ways to better serve displaced populations. Tworesearchers address each set of questions in the individual research design,one a practitioner from the participating NGO in question or UNHCR and theother a social scientist or lawyer.

3. As director of the Minority Fellowship Program at the Social Science ResearchCouncil, I sent an e-mail message to the students who enrolled in anthropol-ogy Ph.D. programs across the country asking them to answer two questions:why they had chosen anthropology as an academic discipline in which to pur-sue a Ph.D. and whether they have had to face any ethical dilemmas as yet orforesaw having to so eventually. In general, responses were similar to thosequoted in the text. Of the 12 students in anthropology, 8 responded.

4. Escobar’s observation about the superficiality of other disciplines is based onthe conduct of a graduate student in sociology who, in comparing Korean,African-American, and Hispanic businesses in terms of profitability, con-ducted a two-hour interview with each business person in her sample using aquestionnaire of limited use. The student relied solely on self-reports andnever considered participation observation.

5. Richard Williams, in speaking with reporters following his daughter’s victoryat Wimbledon, said that if black people knew and understood their historyand culture, the question of concern about “crossing the line” would nevercome up, because they would know that they are the line.

working toward an ethical anthropology: where do we go from here?

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