Ethnography and Ethics

She has made a promise of confidentiality. She has made no similar promise to uphold the law (and even if she had - upholding the law may - in this case - be to withold the record - the subpena might be determined to be against the anthropologists rights). Meaning, if this was the doctors notes (lets say pro bono work at a shelter where he told a bum he woudl keep them confidential) he has two promises to wiegh - one of 'doing no harm' and the promise he made to the bum.

The anthropologist also has no way of knowing the outcome of not giving her field notes up - she does know what will happen to her profession if the world finds out that Anthrolologists are in the habit of lying to the people they interview.

This, in my opinion, is relatively straight forward, her promise of confidentiality holds over a lawsuit that may prove to be frivolous. (Of course you could change the situation where the lawsuit effects her or her family or something - but I am addressing THIS case).

TTF

it becomes an individual decision; the anthropologist must make up her own mind as to what matters to her; does she honour her promises, or not?
Is the law over, and above all considerations, or not?

In my opinion (not hers) your word is your own bond; you must do as you say you will, no matter what the consequences, and you will be upholding the reputation of a profession. {worth going to jail for (what isn't?)!}

But that may not be her opinion.

The anthropologist notes are confidential. He/she is not working for the lawyer who is suing the hospital and the lawyer has no business attempting to sudpoena them. At the same time the anthropologists should not use real names in his/her field notes if there is the possibility that such information would be use to cause harm.

You are in a small boat with your spouse and your mother, both of whom you love more than self. A sudden storm comes up and the boat is swamped. You are a strong swimmer, but neither of your companions can swim. You can save one of your loved ones, but only one. Which do you save?

Though it seems unconnected, this is the same problem as the one posed by the thread. We are frequently torn between multiple choices. How and why do we choose one course over the other? We may favor a course because it is legal and the alternative is not. We may decide to do an illegal act because we regard it as being "better" than following the law. Decision-making is much tougher when the alternatives are apparently mutually exclusive, and we place equal value on the principles underlying them both. For instance, we firmly believe that is very wrong to purposely tell a lie, and we firmly believe that to be the cause of great suffering and injury is equally wrong. Now we know a truth that if told to B would cause them to lash out and injure another person. Which of our values must be set aside? Will you lie to prevent the almost certain violence, or will you tell the truth knowing that great suffering and violence is probable?

In the instant case, the social worker has gathered important information solely because the informants are made to believe that the information will never be attributed. So far as we know the law does not protect ethnographic research, and so a subpoena for that research is legal. The judge issuing the subpoena is obligated to enforce it according to law, and that may impose serious penalties on the ethnographer if they do not comply. I suppose one should factor in whether the case is Criminal, or Civil. If Criminal the charges are brought on behalf of society at large and for the protection of society from the wrongs of individuals, or groups. If Civil, then the charges arise from the injury of an individual, or class of individuals. One assumes that your example is probably a Civil case, rather than a Criminal one. Do you see how the difference might change the decision of whether to comply or not?

What will the probable outcome be of complying with the subpoena? Will justice be served, and is that of greater value than the maintaining the confidentiality of the research notes? Who will be harmed, and to what degree, by the researcher's decision, no matter what that decision is?

The ethnographic researcher will also factor in the impact of the decision on themselves. A clear consequence of defiance of a court order will be jail time. Doing a few days in jail may get the researcher some headlines and the resulting fame may have some very positive personal benefits. The refusal to give up notes may provide the researcher with the satisfaction of upholding their guarantee of non-attribution. To give up the information, may make future research more difficult and might even lead to the ruination of the researcher's career.

On the other hand, what if the jail time is significant and will be worse than unpleasant? What if the headlines are notorious, not laudatory? What if the researcher isn't so sure that the information shouldn't be given up, or that their guarantees of anonymity do not cover the information being sought? What if, deep down the researcher doesn't suspect that their refusal is selfish and egotistical?

There are certainly other considerations, but these few probably illustrate my point. We are each faced, almost everyday, with choices as to what form our thoughts will take, and the aggregate is our "mind-set" and the values we hold. No word escapes our lips that has not been rehearsed in our minds to some small extent. Those who are careless of their thoughts may blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, but more thoughtful people will stop and consider the weight of their words. Words themselves are a form of action, and not to speak is itself an act from which consequences will inevitably flow. Gravitas! Gravitas!

We can never be sure of all the consequences of our thoughts, words and actions, but still choices must be made. In this example, if the researcher is a thoughtful person who has spent serious time in examining and constructing their mind and values, then whatever choice they make will be as good as possible given the totality of the circumstances. If they haven't already developed the sort of inner confidence needed to deal with serious questions, then the result may be either "good" or "bad". Unless the researcher has a malicious intent, I have no problem honoring their decision.

We can only do what we can do; neither more, nor less. I think that we should only reluctantly judge what others ought to have done, for we can never truly understand how, or why they came to their decision. We can and ought to judge ourselves constantly, but with charity and mercy.

Asherman:

The Criminal - Civil distinction in a good one. I was attempting - in my post - to weigh what might be on the other side of the equation and this helps me see a different side.

Meaning: One one side of her scale is her trade, her promises, the harm it could cause to her confidantes, and other considerations.

On the other - if it is a Civil case (and not a class action lawsuit) are the needs of one other person in proving thier case. It is much easier (in my mind) to see the end of the scale as much heavier because of the former considerations.

If it is Criminal (and I think you are right) the scale gets a lot more equal in that the entire society is placed on the scale and the needs for justice and such.

I was assuming it to be Civil as well - and had a much easier time - but I think I need some time to consider my 'weighing' if the case is criminal.

TTF

The civil-criminal distinction is completely irrelevant. In either case, if the ethnographer refuses to comply with the subpoena she runs the risk of being jailed for contempt of court. In any event, as is stated in rufio's hypothetical, it is a civil case.


Since when does someone need to make an explicit promise to uphold the law in order to be held to obey the law?

The ethnographer is faced with a choice: give up the notes and break her promise, or withhold the notes and disobey the court's order. This type of choice is frequently made by journalists, and it's not an easy choice to make. But if the ethnographer decides to withhold the notes at least she can be pretty sure that she'll be let out of jail as soon as the civil trial is over -- in about three or four years.

Joe:

I am referring to the tacit agreement within any social contract. Because the ethnographer is born into a contract and takes advantage of that contract (uses police and fire services) she is a tacit 'signer' of that contract. So when she is stuck in this conundrum she is weighing here explicit agreement with her subjects and the tacit agreement with the rest of society (if it is a criminal case).

I think this is exactly where it matters whether this case is criminal or civil. Criminal and the entire society and this tacit agreement comes into play (like Asherman said) - Civil and this tacit agreement is not entered.

I don't think the punishment should ever enter into this decision - unless you are only looking at the egocentric viepoint for the ethnographer (which it looks like you may be doing Joe - since you stated that the civil / criminal distinction is moot).

TTF

an aside:

this is another case which demonstrates the negative impact of intelligence on a 'simple, angst free, life'; as the posts here demonstrate, for those who have the capacity to grasp, visuallize, and fully comprehend the options, life is a complicated 'game' indeed!

[it is always easier to 'see' without 'vision'!]

OK.


Not OK. If there is a tacit agreement to obey the law, then that agreement extends to all aspects of the law, both civil and criminal. The ethnographer faces the same penalty whether she disobeys a subpoena in a civil case or a criminal case: the nature of the case has no bearing on her duty to comply with the subpoena. If she has tacitly agreed to obey the law with regard to criminal subpoenas, she has equally agreed to obey the law with regard to civil subpoenas.


I don't know what you mean by "egocentric viewpoint" here. Punishment enters into the picture only to illustrate the consequences of choosing to withhold the study. If there were no punishment threatened, then I suppose the choice would be relatively easy, although the ethical dimension of the choice would still exist.

Cool, I got good responses.

Anyway, if you were wondering, what happened in this case was that she had a hearing and the judge decided that it would be unethical to subpeona the notes and revoked it (or something). The official policy of whoever keeps track of these things in anthropology is that you should respect and ensure the safety of the people you work with, even at the expense of science. But then there's the whole moral issue still. Suppose the doctor really was responsible for someone's death? It's not really just a legal issue, but also an issue of personal morality (versus cultural relativism) and intervention. For instance, medical anthropologists go to places with high child mortality rates to find out what the people are doing to cause this, and what mindsets need to be changed. After they do their research, they often do things to help the community that they researched in.... and sometimes they don't. It's a whole issue about when to be an activist as opposed to being just an observer.

Apparently, anthropologists have spent time in jail for refusing to give up information on their fieldnotes, or for participating in illegal activities to get the information for their ethnographies. It's a fine line, I guess.

There was another book we talked about, an ethnography of crack dealers. The guy who wrote it lived in the same neighborhood as the crack dealers, used crack, saw people get killed, lied to police, and so forth, so that he would be able to get insider information on the crack dealers' community. It was also a more activist thing, sort of like, by studying bits of society that "failed", we can tell what went wrong, exactly, and maybe effect changes to fix some problems, and you can't do that without doing some other things as well. But then there's the idea that anthropologists are supposed to be culturally relative and so forth and not make value judgments, even if it has to do with raping and killing people. It's a fine line.