The problem of responsibility: Ethical complications in applied research in urban anthropology

Abstract

This article attempts to recreate the collective anthropological self-reflection that demonstrates how professionals face the multiple ethical complications that arise during both fieldwork and processing of the collected materials, during communication with customers, colleagues and informants. Apart from the theory, this brief study is based on 8 expert interviews with professional anthropologists working both in applied research and in academia. The questions that precede the analysis of the interviews are as follows. How should we understand “ethics” and “ethical behavior” in applied social sciences? Where should the line be drawn between formal ethical requirements (codes) and real ethical complications? Highlighting major ethical issues, the colleagues argue that there are three fields of responsibility that anthropologists have to focus at: communication with informants, communication with sponsors and communication with the “anthropological” corporation. In communication with their respondents, researchers face ethical dilemmas at the stage of “entering” the field, in the moment of self-representation, at the beginning of the fieldwork and while writing final reports as well. Dealing with sponsors and partners, anthropologists have to answer the question of whether they are able to be unbiased. Furthermore, one’s responsibility towards the professional community equals one’s responsibility towards oneself. Furthermore, one’s responsibility towards the professional community equals one’s responsibility towards oneself. The correctness of the research and of presentation of its results, controversies in academic and applied approaches are considered in the last part of the article that is dedicated to relationships in a team of applied anthropologists.