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- Convenors:
-
Doreen Montag
(Oxford University)
Claire Beaudevin (CNRS, Cermes3)
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- Discussant:
-
Deanna Trakas
(University of the Aegean)
- Format:
- Workshops
- Location:
- 345
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 August, -, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana
Short Abstract:
This workshop is intended for students and young researchers in medical anthropology. It focuses on methodological issues appearing in the field and it will deal with ethical issues raised by fieldwork, including those specifically related to health matters.
Long Abstract:
Medical anthropology is challenged methodologically and ethically by its own nature. Research students and young professionals often receive insufficient training in how to deal with international review boards, ethical committees and ethical dilemmas linked to the roles played by researchers in the field. Additionally, first-time fieldworkers often feel overwhelmed by the field complexity and the necessity of writing and organising fieldnotes and diary entries.
The workshop will cover these aspects over the course of one day. In the first half of the day we will address methodological issues of medical anthropological fieldwork. Here the focus will lie on writing fieldnotes and diary entries. We will discuss training experiences, strategies for taking notes in different settings and circumstances, and strategies for writing diary entries. In addition, we will discuss whether medical knowledge is a 'necessary' background tool for anthropological research. This will lead us to the special status of 'double labelled' anthropologists?
The second half of the workshop will focus on ethical issues of fieldwork and discuss differences between biomedical ethics and anthropologists' ethics. We will also bring up the issue of ethical code implementation for anthropologists, its potential pros and cons. In addition, we will discuss differences of 'epistemological climate' between European countries. Then we will turn to experiences facing different committees around the world and look especially at differences between biomedically oriented committees and others. At the end of this second session, we will discuss ethical dilemmas linked to the roles played by researchers in the field.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 August, 2008, -Bernd Brabec (University of Innsbruck)
Paper short abstract:
The impact of western scientific research in general and of ethnomedical fieldwork in particular on the representation of "Shipibo-Konibo cosmology" will be elaborated.
Paper long abstract:
Fieldworking in medical anthropology is a delicate process. There are researchers who feed like vampires on their informants, as well as informants who likewise feed on researchers. From the very beginning, the fieldworker is challenged by own prejudices, projections from his culture of origin and from the host cultural complex. Concious of his own biases, the researcher will still have to understand informant´s expectations on both his project and personality before understanding anything else. The author has lived for five years inside his own fieldwork in western Amazonia.
In Shipibo-Konibo society (indigenous group in Peru), semiprofessional experts in responding anthropological questions have evolved after a relative oversaturation with anthropologists during the 20th century. They know how to seduce researchers with interesting knowledge regarding medical practices, which may be completely eclectic, improvised or even constructed in purpose of impressing the visitor and obtaining economic favours.
The impact of western scientific research in general and of ethnomedical fieldwork in particular on the representation of "Shipibo-Konibo cosmology" will be elaborated. It shall be mentioned that the Shipibo-Konibo ethnic compound is a 20th century´s construction as well as the assumption that there exists a representative cosmology; not to skip the fact that ayawaska usage has been considered the fundamental (and millenium) experience for this "cosmology" by most authors. Today´s Shipibo-Konibo self-perception is greatly influenced if not almost entirely constructed by former ethnographer´s expectations. If you ask a question and get an answer, this should sometimes be considered more worrying than getting no response.
Carine Baxerres (LPED IRDAix-Marseille Université)
Paper short abstract:
This talk will be on the method of the anthropological research on health. It will describe the interrogation that participative observation raises towards a field in which economical and legality/illegality issues are strong. It will lead to the question of the interest of this old research method on the contemporary topics of modern anthropology.
Paper long abstract:
Through this talk, I will present the fussy field of research that was the wholesale center of informal drugs in Cotonou, located in the big international market of Dantokpa. After a brief presentation of the informal market of drugs in Benin and its issue for the sellers towards which I was investigated and for those who struggle against it, I will explain how I negotiated my entrance and stay in this specific research field. Then, I will describe tow steps of this participative observation: the time of the "euphoric empathy" and this of the "generalised mistrust". Afterwards, I will try to analyse this field from reflexions around the research method of the participative observation: question of length, of the lack of background of the anthropologist learner, of the frenzy to ask always more question -even disturbing ones- to be sure of the research results, of the required empathy and the lack of reciprocity of the interest… I will finish this presentation relating the "final crisis" which leads to the "exit" from the field and I will conclude by telling that this study, to my point of view, is scientifically a good one but that it brings affective consequences for the researcher learner.
Alice Péters (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses different ethical problems and methodological adjustments related to my ethnographical work on the social construction of therapeutic pain in the everyday interactions with healers, patients and their relatives (in both a Belgian and a British hospital).
Paper long abstract:
This paper approaches different ethical problems and methodological adjustments related to my ethnographical work on the social construction of therapeutic pain in the everyday interactions with healers, patients and their relatives. To begin with, I shall develop on the obstacles encountered when starting my two different field experiences, first in a Belgian hospital and then in a British one. Ethical conditions leading to the acceptance of my presence in these settings by bio-ethic Committees were strikingly different and have clearly influenced further fieldwork, in particular, the relationships with my interlocutors. In the second part of my paper, I will discuss epistemological and ethical questions of neutrality and transparency when doing ethnography of such delicate topics: how did my informants perceived my presence as an anthropologist in the hospital? And how did such perception influence my work? Also, how to put into words what I have observed without disclosing my interlocutors' intimacy? Above all, what does imply doing research with people in such a state of suffering?
Ashley Ouvrier (University Paris Diderot/Inserm/IRD)
Paper short abstract:
Informed consent is recommended to insure subjects' autonomy when participating to a research regarding health. Historically linked to medical bioethics, the concept is intrinsically linked to medical knowledge and institutions. But do biomedical ethics cover ethics in medical anthropology?
Paper long abstract:
Informed consent is generally recommended to insure subjects' autonomy when participating to a research regarding health. Historically linked to medical bioethics, the concept is intrinsically linked to medical knowledge and institutions. But do biomedical ethics cover ethics in medical anthropology? This communication intends to answer this question by presenting a comparative approach of consent processes in medical research and anthropological research. This communication is based on a study that took place in Senegal between 2006 and 2008 using an anthropological approach to analyse medical research. Observations of medical research activities and qualitative interviews with participants, investigators and promoters provide data on the consent process in medical research. Field notes as well as personal methodological tools and reflexive analysis are used to describe participant's consent in anthropological research. Analysis of the consent process in medical research shows that it varies according to external factors such as time management, social, economic and epidemiological factors. Even though consent is discussed and organised far before the trial starts, results show that participants' autonomy is not consequently guaranteed. Analysis of the consent process from an anthropological perspective show that the biomedical "informed consent" is hardly usable regarded epistemological, technical as well as local factors related to anthropological methods. An individual approach and a reflexive analysis of interactions were used to collect consent during the research. Implications for ethical review of anthropological projects by committees whose decisions rely on bioethics will be discussed.
Susann Huschke (Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa)
Paper short abstract:
In my doctoral research, I grapple with questions of health & illness in the context of irregular migration. Drawing from my experiences in the field with undocumented Latin American migrants in Berlin, this paper discusses ethical issues related to my research topic, methodology, and implementation
Paper long abstract:
This paper discusses ethical issues that occurred during my ongoing anthropological field work on health and sickness of undocumented Latin American migrants in Berlin.
For undocumented migrants, fear of being discovered and deported is a substantial part of every day life. Therefore, any data gathered by the anthropologist is potentially dangerous to the informant, if given to certain institutions. In this research setting, accessing the field involved to a number of practical ethical issues.
In order to get involved with the Latino community in Berlin, I worked as a volunteer for migrant organizations. When participating in informal communication situations, it had to be decided how to disclose myself as a researcher. Furthermore, talking about sickness experiences in the particular context of irregular migration may cause great emotional distress for the interlocutors. Hence, ethical responsibilities of the researcher may demand to defer interviews in order to avoid negative emotional experiences for the informants.
Once informants were found, further questions of responsibility and participation arose. This doctoral study is based on the idea of field research as a process of mutual exchange of services. On the other hand, anthropological participant observation, especially in this highly political and sensitive research setting, could easily turn into mere participation and emotional involvement. Thus, in a continuous process of self-reflection, it must be decided which services are adequate or even mandatory from an ethical point of view, and with which intensity they can be performed without relinquishing the role as a professional scientist.
Michela Canevascini
Paper short abstract:
Does the disciplinary approach adopted to study suicide (anthropology or psychology), determinate the ethical position regarding suicide? What’s the relation between pointing out the social and cultural dimensions (anthropological approach) or the mental diseases (psychopathological approach) and the ethical discourses about individual freedom and social responsibility in suicide?
Paper long abstract:
Which ethical position should a researcher assume in studying suicide in Switzerland? It doesn't concern the freedom to kill oneself (which is rather a moral issue), although it's about bringing into question the neutrality often defended in researchers about suicide (in a psychological or anthropological approach). Does the point of view chosen to study suicide, determinate the ethical position regarding suicide? Adopting a critical approach which point out the social (related to the economical and political conditions) and cultural dimensions (related to the individualistic values lauding the individual responsibility and autonomy) characterizing suicides, does it imply to call into question the individual freedom and the social responsibility? Finally, how to justify an implicated approach encouraging the suicide prevention, if this prevention is most of the time psychological oriented and if the researchers in social sciences have no or not so much consideration in public health programs?
In the ambit of an ethnological research studying the taking into care of persons who did suicide attempts, I interrogate health professionals about their work and their ethical position in suicide. My interest in applied anthropology makes me consider, in a reflexive aim, the ethical implications of my own approach.
Judith Hermann-Mesfen (UMR 912 SESSTIM)
Paper short abstract:
Ethical contradictions might appear for an anthropologist who studies, at the same time, PLHA (Person Living with HIV/AIDS) living in communities on holy water locations and government, religious institutions and American organisations involved in the fight against HIVAIDS. Indeed, aims, representations and purposes of those groups differ.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation, I would like to share some of the difficulties I faced with the Ethiopian and the American institutions involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. My research concerns the EOC's commitment in the fight against HIV/AIDS with a special emphasis on the holy water treatment taken by PLHA, aiming to be cured from HIV/AIDS miraculously. Difficulties did not concern ethical issues towards PLHA. It was simple to meet PLHA on holy water location. In deed, people present themselves easily as person living with HIV/AIDS and anonymization process of interviews was respected. In 2007, PEPFAR opened an ART (Antiretroviral treatment) center nearby a holy water location to distribute treatment to PLHA living over there. Whatsoever, considering religious dogma, holy water is incompatible with any other kind of treatment (holy water is a spiritual cure, which can not be mixed with a worldly one). I have met PEPFAR, HAPCO (HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office) and EOC's leaders. I lighted the issue with all parties which was already, regarding my relationship with PLHA living on holy water location, a sort of betrayal. Alas, my informations contradicted their plans and their data ; finally, they discredited my work, but used a part of it, to create program to make PLHA return home and work. Program that could be relevant but were established without consideration for its social and cultural cost and at least experiences and representations of PLHA. Acknowledging global consequences and ethical issue in this situation, this topic seems important to be address.