Why Professional Ethics Count!!

World War II was a watershed for anthropology both here in the US and for anthropology in the European colonial powers. How each reacted, and how individuals from the different traditions reacted to the wartime experience and the post war environment is a fascinating story and chapter in the history of anthropology as an institution and a culture.

While we, as anthropologists, advocate and believe that we can be both "participants" and "observers," the truth is we can never separate the two roles like our physical and biological science colleagues can. We will always be both, even when we attempt to dehumanize our "participant" role to become "more" objective. It is this fact alone which makes "professional" ethics an important and extremely complex issue in my opinion.

For example, the choice to not participate with the military in such areas as human terrain analysis is an individual moral and ethical choice. But is not a collective (professional) excuse nor escape from the consequences of the choice since collective is made up of the range of individual choices.

As a profession, for example, we have no moral right to criticize the actions of others (outsiders) who could have benefited from an anthropological input but were denied that input because some members objected to their colleagues working with the particular group or in a particular situation.

The profession must take a stand on what is ethically acceptable behavior of its members and which is the demarcation between Us (those we speak for i.e. the profession) and Others (those we do not speak for nor represent). The role of the profession is to define and mediate the limits of a member's acceptable behavior as it applies to its unique jurisdictional claim over a member's public behavior as it reflects on the profession and membership.as a whole.

A professional organization is by its very structure both a social/economic institution representing a group of specially trained individuals; and is the intermediary between the professional practitioner and the general public. In the role of intermediary, it sets ground rules for the interaction and, in return, receives (formally or informally) the right to administer those rules from the governing public authority. It is authorized to be self-governing as these rules apply to its official members. But it also limits the professional organizations authority over its members. And this is the problem we face in our organization and structure as "professional" anthropologists.

The American Anthropological Association and Anthropological ethics?

Yesterday I opened my email and found the message about the American Anthropological Association's Final Draft Report of the Ethics Task Force. Having just finished a paper on Applied Ethics: Anthropology and Business I rushed to the site to see what was there. I managed to make note of this latest attempt to clarify the AAA's position and hopefully my editor will catch it. However, what I find most perplexing is that the AAA is playing the part of Lucy and I feel like Charlie Brown when it comes to trying to kick the ball

The American Anthropological Association has once again decided to look at "professional" ethics. This time it is a Draft Report from the Ethics Task Force which was released on June 30, 2011. While I know what a challenge this task is, I served from 1983 to 1986 on such a committee for the AAA and NAPA, it seems strange that only last February the AAA published a "new" revised and approved Code of Ethics.  What is going on here???
   

I want to commend the Task Force on its efforts.  I can empathize with the challenge they have been and will face going forward. However, my initial response and primary concern is that while the principles expounded here are an improvement over the 1970 Code and its offspring (1984, 1999, 2009, and the February 2011) they still miss the point. 

The topic headers make for a good start at a set of principles — stating what anthropology and the AAA stand for. However, since the AAA will not enforce the code and the COPE (Committee on Professional Ethics)' 2009 Annual Report has essential state as much, I wonder if the AAA has a need for a “Code.” .

In my experience, as an applied/practitioner, the value of a code of ethics is one of protection for the profession — protections against clients who would ask me to use my skills in an unethical way to further their objective; protection against colleagues competing against me by using unethical, inappropriate, or unprofessional practices; protection for the client and the public against the lack of a standard, reliable and valid way of knowing what is “anthropology” and who is qualified to practice as an anthropologist.

For more than a half century, the anthropological profession — as represented by the AAA — has seen ethics as being all about ME (the individual) — What can I do? What must I do? What can I get away with? 

I find that this ego-centric attitude (or should I say “anthropocentric”) fails to recognize that the AAA is a social institution which exists in a real world of human beings and social institutions who could care less about our personal fears, doubts, and biases. To the degree that they care, they want to be assured that there is some institution that will stand behind its members and guarantees the ethical quality of product it purports to represent .They are looking to the institution for quality control guidelines to reduce their risk of employing an unqualified member.

This is what a Code implies. It is a place to go to find the guarantee and to have that guarantee honored. It implies that the subject, the student, the colleague, the sponsor, and the client have recourse through the institution in the event of malpractice. Otherwise, the court system becomes the default.

If we drop the idea of a Code and simply follow the lead of the SfAA (Society for Applied Anthropology) that these will only be the principles that we expect members to follow, then we would be more honest in our presentation to the members and the public. 

The Principles can be stated in a 10 Commandment format without details and qualifications. " Thou shall or shall not." Since the AAA is not going to enforce them, there is little need to go into detail — that only invites more detail and a theological debate that goes nowhere. As principles, they are goals to aspire to and enforcement can done through rewarding outstanding examples of upholding the principles, rather than the time consuming and costly due process of punishment.

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The AAA is NOT a professional society. Since the 1984 reorganization, it has become a consortium of clubs and voluntary associations. Unlike such professional association as the Bar Association, Medical Society, or American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, membership is voluntary and not required to practice the discipline in any of its manifestations (basic research, teaching, or practice) nor in any of the venues where anthropologists sell their service and making a living.

I feel that the Task Force should broaden the scope of its effort to consider the basic question — who and what is, or to be, served by an AAA code of ethics? 

Again, I want to commend the Task Force for it work. It is trying, challenging, and thankless job

Is Applied Anthropology a Profession?

My question is based on my dissertation and subsequent career path as well as monitoring of the anthropological profession for the past 30 years. My dissertation began as a study of voluntary associations as particular type of socio-cultural adaptation to the pressure for change in a complex society - sort of a "superorganic" adaptation. The final product entitled, Anthropology and the Social Engineer: A Case Study of the Professionalization and Elaboration of the Social Scientist's Role, drew upon the research done by sociologist and anthropologists who studied modern professions such as medicine, accounting, engineering for a theoretical framework. They define a profession as a subset of an occupation. My own field work in the areas of social program design and evaluation and research into the organizational development of American anthropology confirmed the idea that a professional organization is a special case of the voluntary association form of social organization.

One of the major findings of this research is that a professional tends to express the very sense of "calling" and "commitment" to the ideology of the discipline they pursue that people report in their religious experience. These professions call upon members to subordination of their individual bias to a set of the collective standards established by discipline (faith) and to maintain a special relationship to the lay public being served. This is similar to what one finds in the clergy.

Just as the Church's greatest weapon against the apostate is "excommunication," so too the greatest weapon against a professional is the threat of ostracism, e.g. a lawyer being disbarred or a doctor having his/her medical license pulled. This is usually caused by an extreme breach of professional ethics or standards.

My question is to ascertain how others think and feel about the following situation.

If the AAA, SfAA, or NAPA have codes of ethics but no authority to enforce them and no formal requirements for membership other than paying dues, then are they a profession or simply a voluntary association?

My observation over the past 30 years is that the profession seems to rest solely and exclusively in the academy. Specifically it rests in the university department which can "license" practitioners with tenure and expel members by rescinding tenure. But where else is there a similar professional control over the practice of anthropology?

A truly professional "applied anthropology" or "practicing anthropology" would model itself after the other service professions such as medical, law,social work,engineering, etc. These professions are organized to insure a form of self government to protect members from government interference in their practice, and protect the public they serve from quacks and unethical practitioners by controlling membership.