Ethnography Final

Belmont Report

A 40 year study published in the 1970s about syphilis in African American men who were not informed of the study’s true purpose and were not told their diagnosis or given treatment. It resulted in the core ethical beliefs of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.

Respect for Persons

Individuals should be treated as autonomous agents. Those with diminished autonomy (ie. children and prisoners) deserve extra protection.

Beneficence

Maximize possible benefits and minimize potential harms (“do no harm”)

Justice

Who ought to receive the benefits or research and bear its burden?

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Board that reviews research proposals to ensure that they comply with applicable regulations, meet commonly accepted ethical standards, follow institutional policies, and adequately protect research participants.

Critical theory

A lens focused on questioning why things are the way they are, often through deconstruction, and with a focus on understanding how they relate to wider institutions, systems, and power structures.

Decolonizing

Practices or processes that are about deliberately undoing colonial and colonized ways of thinking, acting, or organizing the world.

Deductive Approach

Having a pre-existing idea or hypothesis that you test via gathering data.

Inductive approach

Allowing meanings, understandings, or conclusions to be derived from data as it is gathered and analysed.

Humanistic Approach

A framework or lens that aims to recognize and honor human values and agencies, as central to the relationships and meaning-making practices that make up the social world.

Empirical Data

Data based on observation or direct experience through the senses.

Epistemology

The study of knowledge, including its sources, scope, methods, and measures of validity.

Exploratory interviews

Broad, open-ended interviews (ie. life history interviews)

Semi-Structured Interviews

Interviews that emphasize more specific questions about cultural events/happening/ideas. The questions are developed from exploratory interviews and additional ethnographic data.

Hermeneutic Reasoning (“Hermeneutic Circle”)

Assumes your culture and background will influence your process of interpreting and understanding; what is said or written will reflect only the reality/truth of the person speaking or writing.

Iterative process

Moving back and forth through different stages or steps of the research process multiple times or in a nonlinear fashion.

Logocentric

Assumes there is an ultimate truth or reality that is universal; assumes what is said and what is written reflects that objective truth.

Longitudinal Research

An observational study where researchers repeatedly collect data from the same subjects over an extended period of time.

Morals

Principles on which one’s judgements of right and wrong are based (intrinsic)

Ethics

Guiding principles of conduct of an individual or group (extrinsic)

Multimodal Ethnography

A project or text that draws on multiple different senses, modes, or mediums of communication at the same time.

NAGPRA

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which is a U.S. federal law requiring museums and federal agencies to return Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objections, and items of cultural patrimony to lineal descendants, Indian tribes, or Native Hawaiian organizations.

Panopticon

Circular prison with a guard in the center so prisoners constantly feel watched. It’s a form of discipline to create “docile bodies” through minimal force but constant observation.

Postmodernism

The idea that all experience is subjective and no single version of reality can be authoritative. It emphasizes deconstruction, reflexivity, intertextuality, and questioning of truth and authority.

Qualitative Coding

The process of systematically categorizing excerpts in your ethnographic data in order to find themes, patterns, and trends.

Tacit Culture

Unstated, deep details of culture (bottom of the iceberg)

Explicit Culture

Surface-level details of culture (tip of the iceberg)

Museum Considerations for Deciding What to Acquire and Display

• Preservation and environment

• Safety and security

• Narrative and interpretation

• Visual strategy and accessibility

• Ethical considerations and community

• Institutional constraints

Edward Curtis

A photographer who took pictures of Native Americans, which were typically staged and edited.

Craig Childs

An author who believes that museums should not steal artifacts they find or dig for them.

American Anthropological Association’s 7 Principles of Ethical Research

• Do no harm

• Be open and honest regarding your work

• Obtain informed consent and necessary permissions

• Weigh competing ethical considerations due to collaborators and affected parties

• Make your results accessible

• Protect and preserve your records

• Maintain respectful and ethical professional relationships