Discussing ethics and integrity: Anthropological dilemma’s 

Seminar 24 January 2018, REC B5.12, 9:30-18:00

Increasingly confronted with questions about the person of the researcher, the protection of our interlocutors and our participation in Open Science, we, as anthropologist, feel it is urgent to engage with issues such as disclosure, transparency, anonymity, and data ownership. We sense a shift from a concern with ethical issues (in terms of our engagement with our interlocutors and our responsibilities vis-à-vis them) to a focus on scientific integrity and data management (the protection of institutions). Policy makers desire to develop centralized directives that can be applied to a broad range of academic disciplines. These are often at odds with the ethical concerns of anthropologists, who tend to underline the need for a case-specific situated ethics rather than for generalized rules. 

We intend to use this seminar to start a conversation on these topics. We begin with an overview of a state of the art at various universities in the Netherlands, and subsequently move to an analysis how external forces (political/state actors, funders, university administrators, media and various publics) attempt to influence our work, discuss the trouble with transparency, and end with a discussion, together with guests from the UK and Germany, on how to (not) engage with Open Access of ‘research data’

Some issues we are interested in:

* The person of the researcher: Anthropologists are critical of the notion of the unbiased, neutral researcher, recognizing that we are all positioned in particular ways and that what matters is that we actively reflect on this. However, currently we are witnessing a shift from arguing for the need to reflect on the researcher’s positionality to the need to publicly report on political perspectives and values for the sake of transparency (with ‘conflict of interest’ stretched from material interests to values). While debates amongst anthropologists center on transparency vis-à-vis one’s interlocutors, policy debates seem more concerned with accountability to the public.

* The protection of our interlocutors: Whereas anonymity is a standard practice in anthropology, based on an ethics of doing no harm, the partial shift ‘from ethics to integrity’ puts a renewed emphasis on ‘controllability’ which translates in an aversion of anonymity. At the same time, whereas we value the ‘doing no harm’ principle, we also face dilemmas, such as when our interlocutors themselves argue for disclosure or when disclosure may actually be necessary in order to avert serious harm being done to others. 

* Demands for ‘Open Science’: Increased pressure to make one’s ‘primary data’ (fieldnotes) available either for re-use by other researchers or as means of control is particularly problematic for anthropologists. We argue against a generalized notion of ‘raw data’ and ‘data sets’, and instead, point out that data are not the private property of researchers (transferable to those who pay us), are always already processed or framed (and hence ‘copyrighted’) with much of our knowledge embodied rather than registered. 

Programme (provisional)

09:00 – 09:30 Coffee, tea, and getting comfortable

09:30 – 09:40 Welcome

09:40 – 11:00 Ethic regimes and practices: Anthropologists at Dutch universities, with Annemarie Mol (UvA), Freek Colombijn (VU) Martijn Oosterbaan (UU, Anouk de Koning (RU), Kim Knibbe (Groningen) and Peter Pels (LU), chair Birgit Meyer (UU). 

11:00 – 11:30 Break 

11:30 – 12.30 The trouble with transparency. A presentation with interventions, Annelies Moors (UvA) with Peter Geschiere (UvA) and Amade M’charek(UvA)

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 14:45 Round table dilemmas in practice, with Martijn de Koning (UvA, RU,) Erella Grassiani (UvA), Pooyan Tamimi Arab (UU), Annet Pauwelussen (LU), and others. 

14:45 – 15:15 Break

15:15 – 17:15 How can anthropology survive in a world of  Open Science: International perspectives: Peter Pels (LU) Hansjörg Dilger (FU Berlin). Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner (University of Sussex), Bob Simpson (University of Durham). 

17:15 – 18:00 Future plans 

Registration

Attendance is free, but registering is necessary via: ethicsanthro@gmail.com

Organisers

This event is organized by Birgit Meyer (UU), Annelies Moors (UvA), Peter Pels (UL) and Martijn de Koning (UvA/RU), and supported by the AISSR, the Religious Matters in an Entangled World research program (Utrecht University) and ERC Project 2013-AdG-324180 (UvA). 

Location 

University of Amsterdam, Department of Anthropology, Roeterseiland, REC B 5.12

Roeterseilandcampus – building B/C/D (entrance B/C)

Nieuwe Achtergracht 166 | 1018 WV Amsterdam

Building B: +31 (0)20 525 5340 | Building C: +31 (0)20 525 5470