Ethical Dilemmas Activity_Scenarios (1)

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https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #1 Ray Davidson listened in amazement as his student, Frank Sawyer, recounted his reactions to his National Foundation interview. Sawyer had applied for funds to support research for his dissertation and had just recently been interviewed by a foundation representative with regard to his application. He sat across the desk from Davidson, laughing and obviously enjoying his success in "faking out the National Foundation people." Sawyer had flunked his oral exams during the spring term but did not reveal this to his interviewer. Instead, Sawyer told him that he was scheduled to take his orals in the late autumn. The interviewer hinted that Sawyer was very likely to received funding if he passed his orals. After Sawyer left the office, Davidson wondered what he should do. Although Sawyer had failed his oral exams the first time, he was a good student, and Davidson felt that he would pass the next time. However, he was concerned whether a student with this attitude toward the truth would become a reliable scientist, and whether he might be tempted to skew his data to support his hypotheses. Should Davidson inform the National Foundation representative of Sawyer's deception? Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #2 Mary Thompson (pseudonym) had been conducting field work 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 which took place in the plaza. In addition to gatherings of women who shared food preparation tasks and talk groups of men working individually on carvings, the plaza was regularly a gathering place for men at night. One night while Thompson was working on some statistical problem in her house, she was distracted by loud, seemingly argumentative discussions in the plaza. When the noise of 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 (pseudonym) -- 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 other homes began moving into the plaza in response to the wailing which 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 the 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. 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? When questioned by the police, should she, like the other villagers, plead ignorance concerning the killing? Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #3 Roger Thompson had recently spent 18 months in Melanesia with the Grand Lake people. When he was invited to contribute a chapter to a colleague's book on myth, Roger decided to discuss one of the Grand Lake myths about the origin of certain magical powers. The story would illustrate a point that he wished to make about the authority of the shaman in the lives of the people. After carefully translating the myth, Roger reviewed his field notes to check a few details. As he was turning the pages in his notebook, he discovered that two of them were stuck together. When he separated them, he found that the second page, which had been concealed by the first, contained a few short notes describing how he had come to record the myth, the details of which he had forgotten. According to his notes, he had persuaded the leading shaman in the village to recount the myth provided that Roger promised never to reveal it to anyone else. Suddenly Roger wondered whether he was violating a confidence by contributing a discussion of this myth to his colleague's book. Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

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https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #4 Terry Kelly (pseudonym) received a NIMH 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. 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? Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #5 M was a disruptive student activist in the sixties, when it was the fad to be a disruptive student activist, but never to the point of "trashing" the administration building or placing stink bombs in the air-conditioning system. I am asked now to evaluate M for a senior government position. How much ought I to divulge? Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #6 Laura Bohannon, in her book Return to Laughter (Bowen, Elenore, 1964, Doubleday), describes a dilemma when smallpox begins to rage through an African country. She has been vaccinated but cannot get the people to go to the hospital to get vaccinated by Western doctors. Their way of coping with it, is to banish a person from the tribe as soon as a person contracts smallpox. If Bohannon goes after the banished man to give him food and returns without having smallpox she will be considered a witch. This will mean she can no longer study these people effectively. Would you stay in the tribe or go help the man? Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

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https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #7 Jerry Vaughn contracted with a federal agency to conduct a social impact assessment of proposed topographic changes in an aboriginal habitat in a far north region of North America. The contract contained no stipulations regarding ownership of data. In order to determine the potential impacts on the culture of peoples living in that region, Vaughn engaged in participant observation (keeping a detailed field notebook of same); conducted in-depth personal interviews; and took over 1,000 photographs of people working, socializing, and enjoying other everyday and special activities. This work was carried out over a one year period. Vaughn was paid 75% of his contracted salary and other expenses before the fieldwork. Vaughn then wrote a 150-page report detailing the areas of social life that would be adversely affected if the plans were implemented. He further noted that, if the plans were implemented as proposed, there could be no mitigations that could prevent the people's culture from being totally altered. Because of these severe conclusions, the agency director instructed Vaughn to turn over his entire research record in order that the agency could solicit another opinion on the matter. Furthermore, the director told Vaughn that unless he would turn over the record, no further payment would be made to him. Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #8 Mira Walton spent two years in Melanesia conducting a broadly defined community study in a rural village with a population of about 1,500 people. She returned to the United States and wrote a 500-page descriptive monograph in which she included specific instances of conflicts of interest and dispute settlement in a variety of contexts: broken marriage contracts; instances of alleged encroachment of farming on neighbors' lands; a case of theft; a charge of mismanagement of community resources which was made against the village headman; family feuds; and blood feuds. Following the conventions of the AAA, Walton decided that the village and its location should be disguised and that pseudonyms should be used for all individuals mentioned in the published ethnography. A year after publication of Walton's ethnography, which was three years following her departure from the field, she returned to the community of study, taking along copies of the book. These copies were distributed to the people who had been most helpful during her original research project. Most of these individuals were literate and readily understood the contents of the book. Walton asked and received permission to conduct further study in the village. She settled into her task. Six months later, a meeting was called by one of the elders in order that the community members might discuss the book about them with Walton. Walton was surprised by the first remarks concerning the book; namely that, although she had done an accurate job of characterizing the situations of dispute settlement and the overall political structure of the village, they were surprised that she had (1) gotten the name of the village wrong, and (2) not given accurate names of the individuals involved in the disputes. More than 60 people were at the meeting, and these individuals represented a majority of the families in the village. The murmurings indicated strong agreement that she should have given the actual name of both the village and individuals. Furthermore, she was explicitly told that in the next book she should be more careful to use the correct village name and use the correct names of villagers who asked her to do so or who gave permission for her to do so. Ironically, Walton had debated the issue of anonymity with colleagues in the United States. She had argued that in order for further studies to be done accurately by other researchers, it was necessary to specify the precise location and name of the village. And, in order to judge credibility of information obtained from the villagers, she had wanted to provide the names of the individuals who worked most closely with her. They had argued that it was her responsibility to protect "her informants and her community" from outside interference or other possible negative consequences, and cited examples of villages and villagers who had come to harm because the anthropologists in question had used real names. Faced now with the villagers' criticisms, Walton was in a quandary. Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #9 Mary Jones had spent three years, 1969-72, working as an applied medical anthropologist in an urban black community in the United States. In order to provide the social science communities with some data on her project, she wrote a series of articles to be published in relevant professional journals. The data included sensitive materials concerning specific epidemiological problems faced by members of the community as well as strategies and tactics used to improve health care delivery by the local community. Before submitting her articles for publication, Jones asked specific members of the community if they would read the papers for comments and criticism. Individuals from the community health center who had been part of the applied project did so and set up a meeting for discussion of the contents of the manuscripts. The discussion began with several individuals complimenting Jones on her accurate characterization of the local situation and the sensitive way in which she addressed their health care problems and ways they chose to solve some of these. Several moments of silence passed after these initial remarks. Then an elder asked Jones why she had not given the accurate name of the community health center where much of this activity took place. Immediately, someone else asked why she had not given the accurate name of the town where the center was located. A third person asked why there were no names given for the people at the center and in the community who were involved in the project and in the "struggle to improve health care for our people." Jones countered with explanations regarding anthropological conventions which specified the use of pseudonyms in certain types of anthropological reporting, specifically if there was any chance that individuals or a community might be harmed. She provided some examples of instances in a nearby town where people had been harmed because the actual name of the town and the names of people there had been published in a scientific report. The participants at the meeting told her that she should use her own judgment in the final analysis, but they felt that even if she could not see that using the name of the health center might help them, at least she should name some of the people who had helped Jones and her students during their three years of work, even though Jones and her students were on the applied project to help the community. Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

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https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html Ethical Dilemmas CASE #10 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. " Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

https://anthropology.si.edu/outreach/Teaching_Activities/edethica.html CASE #11 Mickey Jordan had developed a collaborative social-impact assessment project involving two colleagues and three students. The six-person team was responsible for collecting field data in a wide geographical area at some distance from their university. Each person was responsible for a specific region. The data were fed, by region, into a computer on a weekly basis and monthly meetings were held so that progress reports could be made by team members. At these meetings, names of individuals who had been interviewed during the preceding period were given as a means of checking off the list of identified community specialists, so that the overall progress of the project could be ascertained. Information filed in the computer did not contain informants' names or other identifiers, as a measure for maintaining confidentiality and anonymity of informants. Each member of the team was paid by the funds made available through a contract with a federal agency (the faculty members were able to buy release time from teaching with contract funds). Jordan had an occasion to be in the region assigned to one of the faculty members, Brian Cash, and happened to find himself talking with one of Cash's reported informants, Henry Jones. Jordon took the opportunity to ask Jones for clarification of reported data that had puzzled him. Jones appeared confused and asked Jordan why he was asking him "these questions." Jordan explained that he had been curious about specific details of Cash's report and thought this would be an opportune time to get further information. Jones said that he had never heard of Brian Cash, much less having ever talked to him, and furthermore he did not even know a research project was being conducted in his community. Directions: • Read the above case and analyze the given situation. o Define exactly what happened. What information is missing? o What issues and problems does the case raise and why? o What are courses of action the anthropologist could follow and what would be the negative and positive consequences of each? o How would "you" have acted in the same situation? • One person from the group presents a summary of the case and the group's conclusions.

Ethical Dilemmas Activity_Scenarios (1)

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