Paper short abstract:

In this paper we request a new code of ethics, one that takes seriously 1) the diversity of anthropological research, 2) the differing aims in different parts of anthropology, and, crucially 3) how varying power relations affect research.

Paper long abstract:

Our current incarnation of anthropological ethics came from the serial crises that swept through the discipline in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Anthropologists sought to make amends for contributing to race science and genocidal colonialism by adopting a code of ethics that presumed a sort of sub-altern other as the object of anthropological analysis, and then, second, sought to create an ethical code which would protect such a sub-altern from the anthropologist. Setting aside how effective such an ethics code was for ameliorating the harms of the colonial encounter, such an encounter and such a subject was never the only sort of research anthropology made or did. More to the point, since the crises of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and anthropology has moved on. While some still do continue to go from core to the periphery and work with colonial or formerly colonial subjects, many anthropologists work in contexts with far different histories and power relations, often seeking to do activist work, applied work, or to criticize power by studying up. None of these streams of anthropology are well-served by the default assumptions in our present codes of ethics.. In fact, Anthropologists can often be put in harm’s way by sticking to the letter of our current codes. Given all this, in this article we request a new code of ethics, one that takes seriously 1) the diversity of anthropological research, 2) the differing aims in different parts of anthropology, and, crucially 3) how varying power relations affect research.