Confronting Anthropological Ethics: Ethnographic Lessons from Central America

Philippe Bourgois

Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 27, No. 1. (Feb., 1990), pp. 43-54.

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http://www.jstor.org Wed Jun 13 16:26:11 2007 0Journal of Peace Research, vol. 27, no. 1, 1990. pp. 43-54 Confronting Anthropological Ethics: Ethnographic Lessons from Central America*

PHILIPPE BOURGOIS Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University

The concern with ethics in North American cultural anthropology discourages political economy research on unequal power relations and other 'dangerous' subjects. US anthropologists define ethics in narrow, largely methodological terms - informed consent, respect for traditional institutions. responsibility to future researchers, legal approval by host nations, and so on. The responsibility of the researcher to uphold 'human rights' or to document political repression and suffering is not merely dismissed by mainstream anthropology as a partisan issue outside the realm of scholarship, but is actually condemned as ethically problematic. The growing postmodernist deconstructivist approach within US anthropology allows ethnographers to obey their discipline's narrow ethical dictates through a reflexive investigation of the hermeneutics of signs and symbols devoid of political economic social context. Drawing on his fieldwork experiences in Central America. the author argues that anthropologists have a historical responsibility to address larger moral issues because their discipline's traditional research subjects-exotic others in remote Third World settings - are violently being incorporated into the world economy in a traumatic manner that often includes starvation, political repression, or even genocide. Meanwhile, in the name of ethics. North American anthropologists continue to ignore or avoid the human tragedies engulfing their 'research subjects'.

1. North American Cultural Anthropology ropology primarily as it is practiced by North The ethics of anthropological research are American scholars researching the Third too complicated and important to be reduced World. These ethical quandaries arise within to unambiguous absolutes or even perhaps to the epistemological tension imposed by the be clearly defined. The human tragedy and US intellectual tradition of allegedly apoliti- political dilemmas I encountered in my eth- cal liberal relativism in opposition to nographic fieldwork in Central America engaged universalism. In Europe, Latin obliged me to confront the inadequacy and America, and elsewhere this intellectual internal contradictions of current anthropo- dichotomy between science and politics is logical definitions of ethics in research. In not as clearly drawn. Indeed, throughout the this article I will be referring to cultural anth- rest of the world, engaged scholarly analysis is not only legitimate but part of the * I would like to thank the Association of Black Anthro- researchers 'social responsibility'. I am not pologists. Angela Gilliam, and especially Faye Harrison proposing a systematic political economy of for organizing the panel 'Decolonizing Anthropology' at North American anthropological know- the American Anthropological Association meetings in ledge, but I do feel that the framing of ethical December 1987 where this material was first presented. Hans Petter Buvollen introduced me to Journal of issues in cultural anthropology needs to be Peace Research and the work of the International understood in the context of the history of Peace Research Institute. Oslo. I am also indebted to the development of the discipline in the Edmund Gordon for urging me not to be afraid while I larger society. The eminently political orien- was writing the controversial portions of this article; and tation of a supposed apolitical commitment to David Stoll, three anonymous reviewers for the Jour- nal, and especially to Charles Hale for useful comments to empirical research must be appreciated for on the first drafts. Eric Wolf maintained my faith in its internal inconsistencies and ultimate ethi- anthropology during my grimmest moments when I was cal poverty. Finally, the emergence of the under fire in the United States. All the errors and weak- contemporary 'postmodernist deconstructi- nesses in this article. however, are strictly my own res- ponsibility. Funding for the fieldwork was provided by vist' focus on 'culture as text' within symbolic the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological anthropology as the dominant theoretical Research and the Inter-American Foundation. tendency among US anthropologists needs 44 Philippe Bourgois to be placed in the problematic context of portant self-consciousness among US anth- anthropological ethics in a politically polar- ropologists researching far from home. We ized world. have come a long way from our European In the late 1960s and early 1970s North forebears (especially the British) who flew American social scientists began discussing into colonial war zones under the auspices of the ethical dilemmas faced by fieldworkers colonial offices to interview 'natives' and studying and living in a world rife with politi- write 'how-to-administer-more-humanely' cal turmoil. Several important edited reports for government bureaucracies intent volumes in anthropology were produced on on increasing 'administrative' efficiency and the subject (cf. Weaver, 1973; Hymes, 1972) lowering costs. Today, few self-respecting and major journals devoted considerable anthropologists would condone the exercise space to earnest - and at times polemical - of anthropology at the service of a world debates by important figures in the discipline superpower or as a complement to espio- (cf. Current Anthropology (1968), vol. 9 (S), nage. Most ethnographers now include a dis- pp. 391-435; (1971), vol. 12 (3), pp. 321- cussion of the methodological and personal 356). In an important early volume a dozen ethical dilemmas they faced during their anthropologists from around the world ques- fieldwork. tioned the historical relationship between the development of the discipline in a func- tionalist theoretical framework in Great Bri- 2. The Discipline's Narrow Definition of tain and the political and economic realities Ethics of British Colonial domination and indirect Let us examine the more commonly cited of rule in Africa and elsewhere (Asad, 1973). these ethical dilemmas: we worry about This critical reappraisal of the roots of the whether or not our research subjects have discipline was even prominently incorpor- truly consented in an 'informed' manner to ated in a major cultural anthropology text- our study; we ponder over the honesty of our book in 1981 (Keesing, 1981, pp. 481-499). presentation of self; we condemn the distor- Respected anthropologists in North America tion in the local economy caused by the have denounced the conscious and uncon- resources we inject into it in the form of scious collaboration of anthropology with 'informants' gifts or wages; we are wary of the counterinsurgency agencies of the US the social disapproval foisted on our primary government -specifically Project Camelot in informants when they become the objects of Latin America (Horowitz, 1967), Project envy or ridicule from the rest of the commu- Agile in Thailand (Gough, 1973; Jones, nity because of the resources, prestige, or 1971; Wolf & Jorgensen, 1970), and the shame we heap upon them; we no longer Himalayan Border Countries Project in steal ceremonial secrets unapologetically; we India (Berreman, 1973). By this time, how- examine our emotions introspectively to ever, the US Defense Department had watch for glints of ethnocentrism; we strug- already successfully tapped anthropological gle to uphold cultural relativism and to avoid expertise to refine counterinsurgency strate- unconsciously conveying disrespect for tra- gies in Indochina. The US military even ditional institutions and values through our started an 'Ethnographic Study Series' and lifestyle; we studiously preserve the anony- published a volume Minority Groups in mity of our research subjects and host com- North Vietnam which was '. . .designed to be munities; we feel guilty for violating the useful to military and other personnel who privacy of our informants and their culture; need a convenient compilation of basic facts we worry about 'scientific colonialism' and about the social, economic, and political our 'responsibility to the host community' so institutions and practices of minority groups we send extra copies of our publications to in North Vietnam' (Kensington Office of the our research site; we might even read trans- American Institutes for Research, 1972). lated versions of our publications out loud to The at times polemical debates of the late our host families and friends if they are illi- 1960s and early 1970s have injected an im- terate; we do not take photographs indiscri- Confronting Anthropological Ethics 45 minately and we do not tape record without 3. A Moral Imperative to Anthropology obtaining prior permission; we discuss the The simple solution so often adopted by pros and cons of consulting forbidden anthropologists is to avoid examining un- archives or quoting from personal diaries and equal power relationships - and to orient letters; we question the ethics of accepting their theoretical interests towards safer, financial support from governments and poli- more traditionally exotic focuses. In the late tically biased institutions; we worry about 1960s Eric Wolf (1972 [1969], p. 261) admon- the potential misuse of our research material ished anthropology to avoid a '. . . descent once it has been published in the public into triviality and irrelevance' by focusing on domain; and finally we take care not to jeo- large-scale '. . . problems of power.' More pardize the access of future colleagues to our recently Roger Keesing (1987) has reiterated fieldwork site by our actions and the gist of Wolf's 'moral' auto-critique of the publications. discipline by calling on symbolic anthropolo- These are indeed all vitally important ethi- gists to situate analyses of the hermeneutics cal issues that we must all confront during of signs and symbols systematically in the fieldwork and write-up. But why does the political economy of power relations. He anthropological concern with ethics stop goes further, arguing that it is scientifically here? What about the larger moral and necessary to place interpretations of 'culture human dimensions of the political and econ- as text' in the context of the real world in omic structures which are ravaging most of order to counter the tendency to impose arti- the peoples that anthropologists have stu- culate but intensely subjective and 'exotic' died historically? With notable exceptions interpretations of religion, myth, and cosmo- most North American anthropologists do not logy on the people we study. include the political and even human rights A logistical imperative could also be dimension confronting the people they advanced for why cultural anthropologists research in their discussion of 'anthropologi- might want to assign priority to an analysis of cal ethics'. In fact the dominant trend has power inequalities in their research. Unlike been to avoid these issues by a theoretical philosophers, literary critics, or art historians focus on the meaning of signs and symbols we usually study living human beings. Furth- outside of social context. ermore, we differentiate ourselves methodo- The problem with contemporary anthro- logically from other social science and huma- pological ethics is not merely that the boun- nities disciplines which also study humans daries of what is defined as ethical are too through our technique of participantlobser- narrowly drawn, but more importantly, that vation fieldwork. We are not allowed to ethics can be subject to rigid, righteous inter- remain at our desks to pore over census pretations which place them at loggerheads tracts; we have to venture into the 'real with overarching human rights concerns. world' not just to 'interview' people but to How does one investigate power relations actually participate in their daily life and to and fulfill the researcher's obligation to partake of their social and cultural reality. In obtain informed consent from the powerful? the Third World, therefore, fieldwork offers What about the right to privacy of absentee a privileged arena for intensive contact with landlords as a social group? It is much more politically imposed human tragedy. Perhaps difficult - if not impossible - to satisfy the this methodological obligation to be partici- discipline-bound anthropologicallmethodo- pantlobservers could inject a humanistic logical code of ethics if we attempt to praxis into our research? Does social respon- research marginalization and oppression, sibility have to contradict our discipline's than if we focus on the philosophical aes- commitment to cultural relativism? thetics of cosmology. Can we address the A moral argument for theoretical compas- urgent problems faced by our research sub- sion does not stop at methodological praxis. jects and still obey our discipline's interpre- We also have a historical responsibility to the tation of methodological ethics? particular types of research subjects selected by our forbears. Historically our discipline 46 Philippe Bourgois differentiated itself from sociology and other ished, politically repressed, economically social sciences by focusing on the 'distinctive exploited humans on earth. As a rule of other' (Hymes, 1972, p. 31). Since our incep- thumb, the deeper, more traditional, and tion we have had what Keesing (1987, p. 161) more 'isolated' the people our forebears stu- calls a 'predilection for the exotic' and what died, the more traumatized their lifeways Sidney Mintz (1970, p. 14) criticized as a have become todav. 'preoccupation with purity'. We are most Given that there is virtually no such thing famous for having trekked deepest into the as a traditional people disconnected from the remotest corners of colonial territories to try outside world, then our 'traditional' field- to find people outside the reach of 'civiliza- work sites should grant us privileged access tion'. We have unabashedly worshipped 'the to the massive sector of humanity pinned into traditional' - so long as it is in a pristine the world economy's most vulnerable nexus. vacuum. Over the past two decades we have We have chosen to study the wretched of the begun to remedy our ahistorical, disarticu- earth. These are the individuals too often lated focus on the particular. Ethnographies condemned to periodic famines, to below are increasingly situating our research in subsistence-level incorporation in flooded regional contexts. In fact, as Carol Smith labor markets. to relocation. dislocation. or (1984) notes in an article on the Maya in the more simply kxtermination: Many of bur Western Highlands of Guatemala, it has discipline's former research subjects are almost become fashionable for anthropolo- fighting back in organized political move- gists to bemoan the myopic-community- ments; but as the Central American experi- study-in-a-vacuum focus of traditional ence demonstrates, their struggles are pro- anthropology. longed, bloody, and often unsuccessful. Even when we succeed in finding a particu- Although as uninvited outsiders it might be larly remote cultural cranny where a 'tra- naive and arrogant for us to think we have ditional' people has had only minimal con- anything definitive to offer, we can still tact with the outside world we can safely recognize the ethical challenge. Why do we predict that these noble folk will sooner or avoid it? later be sucked into the world economy in a In the early 1980s dissertations were traumatized manner. There is a good chance written on the hermeneutics of shame among that their land and subsistence base will be the Maya. But how can we understand the stolen; their efforts at resistance will be met meaning of that important cultural construct with violence, sometimes genocide; their if we ignore the tens of thousands of Maya entrance into the labor market will be in the massacred by the military at the same time, most vulnerable niche; if they are hired by a or the hundreds of thousands who migrate multinational agro-export company -as they each year to harvest cotton, sugar cane, and so often are - they will be systematically coffee. Even if there were no urgent human assigned to the labor gangs that spray veno- rights imperatives as in the case of the Maya; mous pesticides; if they work for a transna- even if there was no extreme economic tional subsidiary exploiting mineral exploitation and subsistence dislocation; resources - as they so often do - they will be there is at least a scientific imperative to sent to the bottom of the shafts to contract situate their 'webs of sinnificance' in the con- black lung - or worse. If they manage to text of what they are r&lly doing every day. maintain their ancestral lands, when they finally start to bring their produce to markets they will be obliged to sell at below subsis- 4. Compassion for the Fourth World - Only tence prices; when they come into contact The journals and books that regularly with the dominant ethnic groups and classes denounce ethnocide and genocide published of their nation they will be ridiculed. In c:her by indigenous rights organizations - such as words, with few exceptions, the traditional, the IM'GIA in Copenhagen, Survival Inter- noble, and 'exotic' subjects of anthropology national in England and France, or Cultural have today emerged as the most malnour- Survival in Cambridge, Massachussets - are Confronting Anthropological Ethics 47 a welcome exception to the tendency for according to ethnicity, reproducing the tra- anthropologists to escape a human rights ditional anthropological focus on the 'exotic mandate. Significantly, however, often these other' in a vacuum. This obscures their organizations tend to legitimize their mili- theoretical understanding of the structural tance by purposefully narrowing their focus roots of repression and exploitation by fram- in the classically anthropological manner -in ing it exclusively in manichean culturalist pursuit of the 'noble savage'. They prefer to terms. denounce genocide when it also entails ethnocide. In Central America this theoretical orien- 5. Fieldwork in Central America tation is referred to as indigenista or 'fourth worldist'. Amerindian culture is seen in a 5.1 At War in Nicaragua's Moskitia manichean manner as the human ideal while Let me document this critique in a classically His~anicculture is treated as irrelevant at anthropological manner - by drawing on my best. This indigenista tendency is most preva- own fieldwork experience. My first stop in lent among North American anthropolo- pursuit of a dissertation topic was Nicaragua gists, and one can recognize its intellectual in 1979, just after the overthrow of Somoza roots in the discipline's traditional focus on by the Sandinistas (Bourgois, 1981). Like a exotic, isolated community studies. good anthropologist, I went as far away from Although guided by a moral vision to the capital city as possible into the Moskitia, denounce human rightsU abuses. fourth the most remote corner of the only province worldists tend to ignore international geopo- where an indigenous population - the Mis- litical contexts because of their geographi- kitu - were said to have maintained organi- cally and culturally reductionist theoretical cally their non-Hispanic culture. Their lan- focus. This leads to arbitrarv com~assion:for guage, religious system, cultural identity, example, I published a b&ef acc'ount of'the structure of land tenure, etc., were indeed poisoning of Guaymi Indian banana workers distinct from the national Hispanic main- who sDravL J ~esticidesL for the United Fruit stream. Of course the historical record Company in a special issue of a French fourth reveals that there is nothing 'traditional' or worldist journal documenting the human isolated about Amerindian culture in the rights violations of indigenous peoples in Moskitia. The Miskitu emerged as a people Central America (Bourgois, 1986). The distinct from their Sumu Amerindian neigh- editors would not have been interested in the bors in the 1600s through the colonial con- article had the poisoned sprayers been His- frontation of the two great superpowers of panic mestizoes rather than Amerindians. In the time - Spain and England. They allied fact they decided not to publish anything on themselves with British pirates - and later massacres in the Salvadoran countryside with Her Majesty herself - to fight off the because the peasants being killed were not Spanish conquerors. In the process they Amerindians. Ironically, only two gener- became the first indigenous people to obtain ations ago most of the gtandparents of these firearms. This enabled them to conquer all 'Hispanic' Salvadoran rural dwellers cur- their aboriginal neighbors. They became rently being massacred were Pipils. They warriors and economic middlemen selling were forced to abandon their traditional lan- Amerindian slaves and smuggled trade guage, dress, and indigenous culture when goods from the Central American mainland the government began systematically killing to British settlers in the Caribbean. Some of all indigenous peoples - between 18,000 and this historical legacy has been frozen linguis- 30,000 individuals were massacred - follow- tically - one-third of the words in their 'tra- ing an Amerindian rebellion in 1932. ditional' language bear a relationship to Eng- Fourth worldists ~rovidevitallv needed lish (Holm, 1978). documentation of tragic human rights viola- Soon after I arrived in the heartland of tions but they often fail to make common Miskitu territory, the indigenous population cause with human beings. They discriminate began mobilizing to defend their rights to 48 Philippe Bourgois land and autonomy in a tragic alliance with context of radical political mobilization. A the Central Intelligence Agency. 'My' field- rigorous debate on peasant revolutions exists work village, accessible only by a full day's in the literature, but relatively few journey upstream in a dug-out canoe, researchers talk to revolutionary peasants let became the central arena of a bloody conflict alone live and work with them. Anthropo- against the central government. Although logy's tradition of participantlobservation the underlying causes for this indigenous war fieldwork encouraged me to try to live among were the historical structures of racism and radicalized peasants rather than merely to marginalization of the region dating back to examine their vital statistics from the vantage the colonial period, the fighting itself was point of historical archives or census tract sponsored economically and was escalated statistics. militarily by the US government. With this in mind I went to explore the My theoretical training in anthropological possibility of fieldwork in a Salvadoran refu- approaches to political economy and history gee camp in Honduras (Bourgois, 1982). My prepared me to deal with understanding who central ethical concern was that counterin- the Miskitu were - why there was nothing surgency experts would have access to my 'traditional' about them - and why they eventual publications and that I might might rise up in arms against their central unwittingly contribute to more efficient government. I was completely unprepared, repression in the long run. I was also con- however, for what to do on the more import- cerned lest I attract attention to refugee ant practical human level. Should I publish political leaders merely by being seen talking my material or would CIA analysts perusing to them regularly. Because of these problems academic journals seize upon my infor- I initially cancelled by fieldwork plans, but mation to refine counterinsurgency oper- on second thoughts I decided it was too im- ations the way monographs by unsuspecting portant a human issue to abandon without at - and not so unsuspecting - anthropologists least a preliminary feasibility investigation. working in Indochina were abused in South- In my exploratory visits to the refugee east Asia during the Vietnam War? (cf. dis- camps I was surprised to learn that the refu- cussion by Jones (1971) and the preface to gees desperately wanted foreigners to reside Condominas (1977)). When I discussed these in the camps with them. They sought out my issues at professional societies in the US con- company because a foreign witness deters text I was 'being political' or I was 'outside local military officials from engaging in the realm of anthropology'.' If I went to the random abuses. They assured me that far media I was by definition no longer an aca- frorn placing them in danger, my physical demic researcher - or worse yet - I was a presence granted them a measure of security. political activist posing as an anthropologist. The church and United Nations organiz- If we are to be logically consistent to our ations operating the camps were also inter- discipline's position on honesty of self-pres- ested in having an anthropologist present on entation, should we punish the closet human a long-term basis. They pointed out that, as a rights activist as firmly as we condemn the full-time researcher, I would also be in an counterrevolutionary spy? ideal position to document human rights abuses and to help receive civilians continu- 5.2 Peasant Massacre in El Salva~ior ing to flee government search and destroy My next aborted fieldwork experience operations just across the border. In fact, all proved to be even more painful and even the human rights workers I spoke with urged more 'political'. Having been a participant1 me to stay and undertake my study in the observer among a people who went through camps. an extraordinarily rapid political mobiliza- This did not remedy the problem of the tion, I decided to leave ethnicity aside and to potential misuse of my published research. investigate the broader theoretical relation- Several refugees suggested I cross the border ship (potentially encompassing ethnicity) be- into El Salvador and discuss this complicated tween ideology and material reality in the issue with the fighters and sympathizers who Confronting Anthropological Ethics 49 remained in their home communities. (I grandfathers, young and middle-aged men think the refugees also hoped that a brief visit and women, pregnant mothers, suckling on my part would end my repeated unin- infants, children, and so on . . . We were all formed questions on such obvious facts as the the target of the Salvadoran air force and distance between their houses or the fertility army. Tgave the following oral account to a of their fields.) Although CIA analysts prob- journalist shortly after my return to the US: ably collect most theoretical studies on pea- sant politicization in Central America, I When the bombardments and strafing began we would take cover anywhere we could. I was told to thought one manner of reducing the practical crouch beside a tree trunk and, whatever I did, not to counterinsurgency value of such research move. They'd shoot at anything that moved. I would be to delay publication - aside from remember inch~ngaround a tree trunk to keep some- periodic human rights reports - until the thing solid between me and the machine-gun fire of the helicopters. political and military situation had changed Sometimes the mortar shots came 10 times in a sufficiently to limit the applicability of my row. and there's a tremendous sense of panic when data. The theoretical questions I would be you hear them getting closer and closer. I was told exploring were already a part of the rigorous that when I heard a mortar fired 1 should grit my scholarly debate on revolutionary peasants teeth and keep my mouth open to prevent my ear drums from rupturing. . . . On the first four days. . . . in the social sciences. Was that entire debate about 15 men, women and children . . . were to be eliminated from social science research wounded. Shrapnel was removed. and amputations for fear of raising the analytic capabilities of were performed with absolutely no pain medicine the CIA? (Washington Post, 14 February 1982, pp. CI). To abbreviate a long story, a few days after my arrival, while I was still debating this On the fourth night of the invasion we issue, a group of peasants planning to cross tried to break through the government into El Salvador a few hours later offered to troops encircling us. The plan was for the let me accompany them. I impetuously - in FMLN fighters (i.e. younger peasants with retrospect unwisely - jumped at the oppor- guns and minimal military training) to draw tunity. My intent was to stay in El Salvador fire from a machine gun nest set up by the for only 48 hours. I thought conversations government soldiers on a knoll, while the with peasants and fighters in the war zone rest of us civilians tried to run by unseen in would help me come to a final decision as to the darkness of the night. Once again there whether or not extended fieldwork in the were about a thousand of us of all ages, refugee camps in Honduras was feasible and several pregnant. others sick, one blind, and - more importantly - ethically defensible. many under three years of age: My 48-hour visit to El ~aivadorwas pro- We were on a rocky path with a Salvadoran gun- longed into a fourteen-day nightmare when post off to our left. FMLN guerrillas, also on our left the Salvadoran military launched a search and to the rear. drew fire while we made a break for and destroy operation against the region. it. The babies the women were carrying were shriek- The government forces surrounded a 40 ing at the noise and, as soon as we got within earshot, the Salvadoran forces turned their fire on us. square kilometer region (approximately a At this point. it was pandemonium. Grenades dozen hamlets) and began systematically were landing around us: machine guns were firing; bombarding, mortaring, and strafing the we were running. A little boy about 20 yards ahead of entire zone with airplanes, Huey helicopters, me was blown in half when a grenade landed on him. His body lay in the middle of the path, so I had to run and artillery. There were approximately a over it to escape (Washington Post, 14 February thousand peasants living in the area and only 1982, pp. Cl). one or two hundred of these had guns and probably less than a dozen were formal I remember at one point being crouched near members of the FMLN. The population was a woman under cover of some bushes when composed of a typical cross-section of pea- her baby began to cry. She waved at me with sants - the kind of people you would find her hand and whispered to me to run away as anywhere in rural Latin America if you cir- fast as possible before the government sol- cled off 40 square kilometers: grandmothers, diers heard the noise. I obeyed, and sprinting 50 Philippe Bourgois forward I heard machine gun bullets and of a change in research plans. A strong argu- shrieks all around me. Mothers and infants ment was made to terminate me as a gradu- made up the bulk of the casualties that night. ate student - and with abundant justification Only a mother can carry her baby under fire according to the anthropological ethics I had because only a mother has a chance of pre- broken: I had crossed a border illegally, venting her suckling infant from crying. The thereby violating the laws of my host country Salvadoran military was shooting in the dark- government, I had not notified my disser- ness into the sound of crying babies. tation committee of my decision to explore a Six to seven hundred of us managed to new dangerous research site; I had notified sprint past the machine gun nest. For the the media and contacted human rights organ- next fourteen days, we stayed together, izations, thereby violating the right to running at night and hiding during the day: privacy of my research subjects; I had poten- tially jeopardized the future opportunities of One of the major hazards we always faced was the colleagues to research in Honduras and El noise of crying babies and the moans of the wounded, making the whole group vulnerable to Salvador by breaking immigration laws and detection. Rags were stuffed in the mouths of the calling attention to government repression in wounded, so their cries would not be heard. The public forums. babies cried a lot because they were hungry; their Significantly, had I not gone to the media mothers' milk had dried up. with my testimony of human rights viola- A young woman gave birth on the second night of our flight. She was up and running for her life the tions, anthropological ethics would not have next day, along with the rest of us. Those of us who been violated in as serious a manner. It were young and healthy were lucky. It was the law of would have remained a personal story be- survival at its cruelest: the slow runners and the tween my committee and myself as an unsuc- elderly were killed (Washington Post, 14 February cessful and reckless preliminary fieldwork 1982, pp. Cl). exploration that had been decided against as At one point we crossed back through the too dangerous. By remaining silent I would villages we had fled from: not have violated anyone's rights to privacy nor have threatened my colleagues' access to . . . we were hit with the overpowering stench of the field, nor offended my host country decaying bodies. There were donkeys, pigs, horses, government. chickens- all dead. The soldiers had burned down as Of course my personal sense of moral res- many of the houses as they could, ripped apart the ponsibility obliged me to provide public testi- granaries. It even looked as if they had tried to trample the fields (Washington Post, 14 February mony and I entered the media/political 1982, pp. Cl). arena. An anthropologist is presumably not . . . [We] came upon the naked body of a middle- supposed to document human rights viola- aged woman. Her clothes had been ripped off and tions if this would involve violating a host apparently acid had been poured on her skin because it was bubbling off. The body had been left in a country government's laws or contravene the prominent position along the path, presumably to informed consent and right to privacy of the terrorize any survivors (Bourgois, 1982, p. 21). parties involved. In other words, anthropo- logy's ethics can be interpreted at logger- heads with humanity's common sense. I 5.3 The Academic Reaction could have crossed into FMLN territory as a That was the end of my fieldwork on ideology journalist or as a human rights activist but and material reality among revolutionary not as an anthropologist, because access to peasants. It was also almost the end of my the information I was seeking was only avail- anthropological career, after I sought out the able by crossing a border illegally: publiciz- media and human rights lobbyists on Capitol ing that information also violated a people's Hill to present my testimony to the public. I right to privacy and informed consent. Sub- had violated several of the anthropological/ sequently, lobbying to change US foreign methodological ethics discussed earlier along policy exacerbates these transgressions, with the specific duties of a graduate student since political denunciation is not conduct to keep hislher academic advisors informed befitting an anthropologist. Confronting Anfhropological Ethics 5 1

To reiterate, the problem is rooted in a the Salvadoran government troops firing at specifically North American epistemology of us before photographing the children they relativism and 'value-free science' which wounded? Why not? And where does one forbids engaged research and - when taken draw the line? Does one abandon urgent to its logical conclusion - denies absolute research simply because a dictatorial host assertions including those of universal nation government does not want its repres- human rights. This alleged 'apolitical' orien- sive political system to be documented? How tation expresses itself within US academia in does one decide whether a host country a phobic relationship to the media and in a government is sufficiently repressive to war- righteous condemnation of 'political acti- rant breaking its laws? These unresolved vism'. In contrast to Europe - especially questions reveal that there is nothing apoliti- France - where political militance and an cal about the North American commitment occasional op.ed. in Le Monde is a sign of to relativism and to its methodologically academic prestige (Bourdieu, 1984), in the defined body of ethics. Most dramatically, US, newspaper editorials and magazine the ethic of informed consent as it is inter- articles are often interpreted as an indication preted by human subject review boards at of lack of serious commitment to science. North American universities implicitly re- While we do have to be cautious of sacrificing inforces the political status quo. Understood analytical rigor by becoming too immersed in in a real world context, the entire logic of media presentations and political polemics anthropology's ethics is premised on a highly are we supposed to keep our human rights political assertion that unequal power rela- denunciations out of the public domain in the tions are not particularly relevant to our name of anthropological ethics and scientific research. rigor?3 It is important that the discipline enforces 5.4 Informed Consent: United Fruit the tenets of informed consent and respect Company Versus Banana Workers for host country governments. Taken out of For my final dissertation fieldwork project, I context, however, these academic requisites purposefully selected a host country which obscure the political and economic realities was free of civil-political strife; neverthe- of the regions where we have traditionally less, the same ethical contradictions arose. I been most active. A research project which chose to study ethnic relations on a United investigates structures of inequality will have Fruit Company banana plantation in Costa a hard time passing a human subject's review Rica on the Panamanian border (Bourgois, board if the canons of anthropological ethics 1988, 1989). My first problem was that the are rigidly applied. Are we supposed to transnational corporation had redefined the abandon controversial research? Most politi- border, and the plantation's operations ille- cal economy studies can be defined as poten- gally straddled Panama and Costa Rica. My tially unethical. A fieldworker cannot obtain real host country 'government', therefore, important information on unequal power turned out to be the United Fruit Company - relations by strictly obeying the power struc- not Costa Rica or Panama. High level United ture's rules and laws (cf. Nader, 1972, pp. Fruit Company officials considered my topic 303ff.). How does one obtain meaningful - 'a history of the ethnicity of the population information on peasant/landlord relations if in the plantation region' -innocuously 'anth- the landlord is required to provide truly ropological' and ordered local plantation informed consent? What are the limits to officials to graciously open their confidential 'informed consent' in settings of highly files to me. I was even allowed to reside in unequal power relations? Do we have to workers' barracks for some 16 months. Had notify absentee landlords prior to interview- management's consent been truly informed ing sharecroppers on their estates? Are we and had the Company understood what a allowed to obtain jobs in factories in order to historical analysis of ethnicity in a plantation document union repression? Did I have an context would reveal, I would obviously not obligation to obtain informed consent from have been allowed to document systemati- 52 Philippe Bourgois cally the transnational's quasi-apartheid ing a suspect - every time we spoke with labor hierarchy, its ethnic discrimination on them we would make terrible fieldworkers. occupational safety issues; or its destruction Experienced fieldworkers usually advise of the union movement by ethnic recruit- novice ethnographers not to take notes in ment, and so on. The head managers would public while undertaking fieldwork. Is that not have toured me through their golf not a false representation of self? Is partici- course, drunk whiskey with me, and made pation/observation fieldwork inconsistent racist comments about their workers to me if with anthropological ethics? Where do we they had really understood anthropological draw the line? Once again, these important participantlobservation research technique. ethical dilemmas become even more pro- Although I was never overtly dishonest; and nounced when we are focusing on conflict although I always precisely explained my and unequal power relations, i.e., dangerous research topic to everyone; they obviously issues. Management's informed consent and did not understand my research implications right to priva& were not the only anthropo- or they would have run me out of the area logical fieldwork ethics I stretched in my andlor beaten me up. research on the banana ~lantation.I would In fact, participantlobservation fieldwork frequently accompany management-level by its very definition dangerously stretches informants through their daily routine. the anthropological ethic of informed con- Consequently, sitting by their side in air- sent. We obviously have an obligation to let conditioned Company pick-up trucks I ille- the people we are researching know that they gally crossed the border between Panama are being studied and that a book and/or and Costa Rica on an almost daily basis.4 articles will eventually be written about Should I have not relied upon management them. Furthermore, we have to explain as employees as primary informants merely precisely as possible the focus of our study. because their illegal activities would oblige At the same time, we are taught in our me to break immigration laws? Are we courses preparatory to fieldwork that the allowed to research-illegal operations? Do gifted researcher must break the boundaries we systematically have to avoid frequenting between outsider and insider. We are sup- the rich and powerful who regularly bend posed to 'build rapport' and develop such a and break laws? level of trust and acceptance in our host societies that we do not distort social interac- tion. Anything less leads to the collection of 6. Theoretical Context skewed or superficial data. How can we Having raised these issues in a somewhat reconcile effective participant/observation moralistic and righteous tone, let me hasten with truly 'informed consent'? Is rapport- to add that I am not arguing that anthropolo- building not just another way of saying gists necessarily have to be human rights acti- 'encourage people to forget that you are con- vists and political cadre for 'worthy' causes in stantly observing them and registering every- order to remain ethical persons. Although thing they are saying and doing'? Techni- perhaps another - arguably more consistent cally, to maintain truly informed consent we - way of reformulating anthropological should interrupt controversial conversations ethics would be to require that our studies and activities to re-announce our presence among the 'poor and powerless' contribute and to make sure everyone is aware of the to their empowerment. That would certainly implications of what they are saying or doing. be different from the current practice of A fieldworker cannot begin every in-depth requiring 'ethical researchers' to obtain the conversation with old-time informants who informed consent of landlords and military have become friends by reminding them that bureaucracies. Nevertheless, this discussion the issues raised in their discussion may be of our human responsibility to our research eventually written up. If we recited to our subjects does not imply that we automati- informants their rights to privacy and cally have something concrete to offer in informed consent -like police officers arrest- their struggles for survival or for political Confronting Anihropological Ethics 53 rights. We are outsiders: and we have a etical approaches which make dangerous formidable capacity unwittingly by our mere subjects the central thrust of our investi- presence to cause trouble or to seriously gations. Most importantly, we should not complicate matters. For these reasons, anth- systematically foibid fieldwork on exploi- ropologists are finding it much more tation, oppression, and power in the name of comfortable to pursue studies which do not anthropological ethics. situate signs and symbols in their invariably It would be dangerous and arrogant to dangerous political and economic contexts. think that there are &finite answers t; any of By focusing exclusively on celestialized these ethicaVmoral questions. We need to meaning, we can rest assured that absentee discuss them and think about them in both landlords will not unleash the secret police ~racticaland theoretical terms. Meanwhile. on our informants; future colleagues will not however, as all of us (without exception) be prevented by host governments from wallow in a phenomenological swamp of entering the country because of our contro- signs and symbols we should not forget that versial publications; and we will not politi- our 'informants' continue to be crucified. cally embarrass our home institutions. I also want to state specifically that I am not sarcastically implying that interpretive NOTES studies within symbolic anthropology are an 1. The chapter on the 'Meo' in the military's ethno- 'immoral political cop-out' or that the post- graphic study series on North Vietnamese minority groups specifically notes that they 'make excellent modernist deconstructivist movement within guides' and 'reliable porters, who can carry heavy anthropology does not have important and loads (up to 50 kilograms) while maintaining a rapid potentially emancipating insights to offer us. gait' (Kensington Office of the American Institutes On the contrary, understanding the dialectic for Research. 1972. p. 239). 2. A politically conservative non-anthropologist out- of power relations - even if we understand side member of my qualifying examination protested power to be rooted in a labor process and a my academic training to my professors saying some- history of class confrontations - requires a thing to the effect that 'anthropology is supposed to 'symbolic approach' as much as a 'materialist be about ritual and religion - not politics'. 3. A church-based director of a human rights organiz- one'. There should not be anything incom- ation rebuked me when I explained to him the anth- patible between symbolic anthropology and ropological ethics which prevented me from showing political economy. There have been many a member of the US Congress photographs of pea- important exploratory articles dealing from a sant victims during my testimony on the military symbolic perspective with the most 'danger- invasion: 'For God's sake what are you talking about! Testify as a human being then - not as an ous' of all subjects - the meaning of violence anthropologist.' and political repression from a symbolic 4. In my anthropological obsession to satisfy my legal perspective (cf. Falla, 1983; Taussig, 1984). obligations to my host country government I tried to Symbolic studies of all kinds are important obtain a special permit from the local immigration official at the border crossing on the plantation. The for the vitality of anthropology just as are public official laughed at me in disbelief telling me literary and artistic criticism, folklore, and that so long as it was OK with the Company he had no philosophy for understanding the most im- objection to my repeated frontier trespasses. portant dimensions of humanity. At the same time, in our pursuit of science let us not forget that we are usually studying the starv- REFERENCES ing and the persecuted. Moreover, let us not Asad. Talal, ed.. 1973. Anthropology and rhe Colonial flee from human concerns in the name of Encounrer. New York: Humanities Press. Berreman. Gerald. 1973. 'Academic Colonialism: Not anthropological ethics. Let us not be political so Innocent Abroad', pp. 152-156 in Weaver, 1973. when we claim to be apolitical or apolitical in Bourdieu. Pierre. 1984. Homo Academiccrs, Paris: the name of ethics. Let us not support repres- Minuit. sive status quo's in pursuit of vigorously Bour~ois.Philiooe. 1981. 'Class. Ethnicity and the State ~&ngthe '~iskituAmerindians of Northeastern introspective deconstructions of meaning. Nicaragua'. Latin American Perspecrives, vol. 8. no. We have to confront the serious ethical 2, Spring, pp. 22-39. dilemmas without retreating from the theor- Bourgois, Philippe, 1982. 'What U.S. Foreign Policy 54 Philippe Borrrgois

Faces in Rural El Salvador: An Eyewitness Account'. Belief in Basic Research: An Example from Thai- Monthly Review, vol. 37, no. I, May, pp. 14-30. land', Current Anthropology. vol. 12, no. 3, pp. Bourgois, Philippe. 1986. 'Guaymi: Ics damnes de la 347-350. plantation'. Ethnies, nos. 415. SummerlFall. pp. Keesing, Roger, 1981. Cultural Anthropology: A Con- 43-45. temporary Perspectirv. New York: Holt. Rinchart & Bourgois, Philippe. 1988. 'Conjugated Oppression: Winston (second edition). Class and Ethnicity Among Kuna and Guami Banana Keesing, Roger, 1987. 'Anthropology as Interpretive Workers on a Corporate Plantation'. American Eth- Quest'. Current Anthropology, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. nologist, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 328-348. 161-176. Bourgois. Philippe. 1989. Ethn~cityut Work: 1)i~'ided Kensington Office of the Amer~can Institutes for L

PHILIPPE BOURGOIS, b. 1956, PhD in Anthropology (1985); Assistant Professor. Washington University (1985-88), San Francisco State University (1988-); lived and researched in Central America 1979-84. Author of Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Currently undertaking fieldwork on ethnic discrimination and the underground economy in Spanish Harlem, New York.