Panel of anthropologists rejects idea of trying to bar scholars
A special panel of the American Anthropological Association — after spending more than a year studying the question of whether its ethical standards should bar ties to the military and intelligence agencies — issued a report Wednesday that recommended tighter scrutiny of such work, but explicitly affirmed the possibility that it could be conducted ethically in some cases.
“We do not oppose anthropologists engaging with the military, intelligence, defense of other institutions or organizations,” the report says. “Neither, however, do we advocate that anthropologists actively seek employment or funding from national security programs. We see circumstances in which engagement can be preferable to detachment or opposition, but we recognize that certain kinds of engagement would violate the AAA Code of Ethics and thus must be called to the community’s collective attention, critiqued and repudiated.”
The panel called for the association to take a series of steps to clarify what may or may not be ethical. For example, it urged that the standards of informed consent should be changed to “develop specific language regarding work with vulnerable populations and contexts in which consent may not be free, voluntary, or non-coerced.”
Generally, the panel stuck to broad principles and did not rule in or out categories of work. For example, while the report talks about the importance of openness, it does not rule out the possibility that anthropologists might conduct classified research that could be ethical. One hypothetical in the report is offered as an example to show how difficult it may be to declare individual projects unethical just because they violate a particular value of scholars (in this case openness). The report asks: “What if an anthropologist wants to help U.S. special forces troops deliver medical aid to people in northern Afghanistan and works with them to develop a plan, but is constrained from publishing an account of the work?”
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“We do not oppose anthropologists engaging with the military, intelligence, defense of other institutions or organizations,” the report says. “Neither, however, do we advocate that anthropologists actively seek employment or funding from national security programs. We see circumstances in which engagement can be preferable to detachment or opposition, but we recognize that certain kinds of engagement would violate the AAA Code of Ethics and thus must be called to the community’s collective attention, critiqued and repudiated.”
The panel called for the association to take a series of steps to clarify what may or may not be ethical. For example, it urged that the standards of informed consent should be changed to “develop specific language regarding work with vulnerable populations and contexts in which consent may not be free, voluntary, or non-coerced.”
Generally, the panel stuck to broad principles and did not rule in or out categories of work. For example, while the report talks about the importance of openness, it does not rule out the possibility that anthropologists might conduct classified research that could be ethical. One hypothetical in the report is offered as an example to show how difficult it may be to declare individual projects unethical just because they violate a particular value of scholars (in this case openness). The report asks: “What if an anthropologist wants to help U.S. special forces troops deliver medical aid to people in northern Afghanistan and works with them to develop a plan, but is constrained from publishing an account of the work?”