Issues in the Ethics of Research Method: An Interpretation of the Anglo-American Perspective [and Comments and Reply]

Chilungu, Simeon W.; Barnes, Jeb; Copans, Jean; Fabian, Johannes; Hirabayashi, James A.; Jacobs, Sue‐Ellen; Jorgensen, Joseph G.; Katz, Naomi; Lwanga-Lunyiigo, Samwiri; Nakhleh, Khalil; Owusu, Maxwell; Panoff, Michel; Quarcoo, A.K.; Saberwal, Satish; Scholte, Bob J.; Southall, Aidan; Studdert-Kennedy, W. G.; Tax, Sol; Wachtel, Andrew

doi:10.1086/201759

Cited by 17 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Western European and American ethnographers left their countries to study "primitive" or indigenous people in other geographic regions (Aguilar, 1981;Chilungu, 1976;Hayano, 1979;Srinivas, 1967). White, Anglo, heterosexual sociologists in the U.S. studied "deviance" among African Americans, Latinos, and gay men (Humphreys, 1975;Parades, 1977;Staples, 1976).…”

Section: The Researcher's Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social scientists were criticized for failing to capture the perspectives of their respondents, and for overlooking how respondents' reports to researchers representing dominant or oppressive groups might have been less than honest (Blauner & Wellman, 1973;Goodson-Lawes, 1994;Ohnuki-Tierney, 1984;Parades, 1977;Staples, 1976;Warren, 1977;Zinn, 1979). This failure to recognize and control for the biases related to an emic under-emphasis led to studies which seemed to stereotype third world and colonized people, as well as people of color in the United States (Aguilar, 1981;Chilungu, 1976;Ladner, 1971;Lewis, 1973;Moynihan, 1966;Rosaldo, 1993;Staples, 1976). An uncritical acceptance of the mid-twentieth century etic view that homosexuality was pathological, along with a failure to procure the emic perspective of a non-clinical sample of lesbians and gay men, led to a series of study findings that portrayed homosexuality as a mental illness (Apperson-Behrens & McAdoo, 1968;Bieber et al, 1962;Loney, 1973;O'Connor, 1964;Thompson, Schwarz, McCandless, & Edwards, 1973;West, 1959).…”

Section: The Researcher's Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was thought that the feelings and commitments of inside investigators to fellow group members would interfere with their ability to remain objective (Aguilar, 1981;Chilungu, 1976;Hayano, 1979;Merton, 1978;Srinivas, 1967). It was also believed that only a stranger was capable of noticing what was important within a particular group or culture (Aguilar, 1981;Merton, 1978).…”

Section: The Researcher's Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

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When Interviewing “Family”

LaSala

2003

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services

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Section: The Researcher's Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Researcher's Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Researcher's Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

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When Interviewing “Family”

LaSala

2003

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services

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“…There is remarkable consistency in the accusations and counter accusations which have been made both in the Orientalist and African Studies fields. In the latter, there have been two notable occasions on which the problem has erupted: Magubane's (1971) attack on Mitchell and Epstein 8 and Chilungu's (1976) general criticism of Western anthropologists' research on non-Western cultures.…”

Section: African Studies and African Anthropologistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of Anthropology to African Studies

Southall¹

1983

African Studies Review

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The African Studies Association (ASA) was born in a blaze of anthropological glory with Melville Herskovits, the celebrated anthropologist and “universally recognized dean of American Africanists in the United States” (Greenberg, 1963: 3) as its Founder President in 1957. In all, six ASA presidents have been anthropologists, a number exceeded only by political science. Of the forty-eight founding Fellows, ten were anthropologists, eight were political scientists, and four were geographers, while history, economics, and sociology had three each. This numerical predominance of anthropological membership continued until 1963 when political science equalized and then drew ahead. Other possible indicators, such as membership of the Executive Board, winners of the Herskovits prize, recipients of travel awards, and numbers of Ph.D. dissertations, are in conformity with this general picture of early anthropological prominence and later eclipse. When the ASA commissioned a comprehensive survey of African research (The African World, published in 1965), the editor (Lystad) was an anthropologist and over one-third of the chapters were by anthropologists. It was the most ambitious single publication ever produced by the ASA. Such quantitative indicators are crude, and we must ask what lies behind them. There are some problems in the fact that the disciplines are not clear cut. This paper includes public administration with political science and archaeology with anthropology. Some linguists and ethnomusicologists, especially in the early period, definitely identified themselves as anthropologists, whereas at the present time most would not. Some anthropologists have acquired the identity of sociologists for circumstantial reasons. Generally speaking, social anthropologists who have taught in African universities from the 1950s until now have had to do so in departments of sociology and frequently as heads of such departments.

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“…Kenya, in the 1930s, did not even consider it necessary to discuss their research methods at all. We need only stress here that we cannot without serious distortion of reality derive valid macrosociological theories or cross-cultural generalizations from our crude microsociological techniques (see Naroll 1970aNaroll , 1970bRohner 1975;Chilungu 1976). …”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnography of Africa: The Usefulness of the Useless

Owusu

1978

American Anthropologist

Self Cite

113

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The complex epistemological and methodological problems of data-quality control or ethnographer bias in anthropological research as they relate to the use of the native languages and/or the use of native-interpreter informants are critically reexamined. Summarizing the 1939-1940 Mead-Lowie debate, the paper suggests, on the basis of a close review of selected classic ethnographies of Africa, various ways by which the quality of comparative cross-cultural data could be meaningfully improved. [methodology of cross-cultural research, epistemological issues in anthropology, use of native languages in fieldwork, ethnography of Africa, history of anthropology] TOWARD AN AFRICAN CRITIQUE OF AFRICAN ETHNOGRAPHYHui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, "Your teachings are of no practical use." Chuang Tzu said, "Only those who already know the value of the useless can be talked to about the useful. This earth we walk upon is of vast extent, yet in order to walk a man uses no more of it than the soles of his two feet will cover. But suppose one cut away the ground round his feet till one reached the Yellow Springs, could his patches of ground still be of any use to him for walking?" Hui Tzu said, "They would be of no use." Chuang Tzu said, "So then the usefulness of the useless is evident." [Fortes 1945:vi.l SINCE THE EMERGENCE in Euro-America of anthropology as a university discipline in the latter part of the 19th century, the discipline has, in a true scientific, and certainly humanistic, spirit, continued to be characterized by self-conscious efforts to improve its methods of data collection, data analysis, data organization, interpretation, and presentation. That is, it has continued to assess critically its methodological, theoretical, and epistemological foundations.Especially in the past five years or so, we have seen the appearance of a flood of very vocal and self-critical literature that has succeeded in reopening, albeit under new auspices, the inconclusive debate that Sol Tax once referred to as the "thirty years' war" of 1840-70. This was the war between "Ethnology and Anthropology; a war between those MAXWELL OWUSU is both associate professor of anthropology and associate research scientist, Center for Research on Economic Development, at the University of Michigan. He received a B.Sc.Hons. at the London School of Economics (1963) and a Ph.D. at Chicago (1968). His research and writing have been primarily concerned with Africa, particularly his native Ghana. Currently he is completing a book-length study of representation, economic underdevelopment. and political change in Ghana and is planning future research on rural and urban Africans' perception of social inequality and class formation, and on political and economic transformations of rural Caribbean populations. Owusu] ETHNOGRAPHY OF AFRICA 311who were historians and philosophers on one side and those who were for science, particularly biology (wherever it might lead one), on the other; a war between humanitarians whose science was related to their advocacy of a ...

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Issues in the Ethics of Research Method: An Interpretation of the Anglo-American Perspective [and Comments and Reply]

Cited by 17 publications

References 30 publications

When Interviewing “Family”

When Interviewing “Family”

The Contribution of Anthropology to African Studies

Ethnography of Africa: The Usefulness of the Useless

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