The 'problem' of ethics in contemporary anthropological research

Why is it that ‘ethics’ is seen as a problem in anthropology? This paper seeks to explore this question by looking at (a) historical shifts in the relation between ethnographers and their subjects/informants and (b) anthropological practice. I am interested in past anthropological practice to see whether it provides a reasonable guide to future practice, specifically with regard to the ethical conduct of ethnographic fieldwor

Islandness: Vulnerability and resilience in Oceania

Pacific and other islands have long been represented as sites of vulnerability. Despite this, communities on many Pacific islands survived for millennia prior to the intrusion of people from Europe into their realm. An examination of traditional disaster reduction measures indicates that traditional Pacific island communities coped with many of the effects of extreme events that today give rise to relief and rehabilitation programmes. Key elements of traditional disaster reduction were built around food security (production of surpluses, storage and preservation, agro-ecological biodiversity, famine foods and land fragmentation), settlement security (elevated sites and resilient structures) and inter- and intra-community cooperation (inter-island exchange, ceremony and consumption control). Many of these practices have been lost or are no longer employed, while other changes in the social and economic life of Pacific island communities are increasing the level of exposure to natural extremes. Pacific islands, and their inhabitants, are not essentially or inherently vulnerable. They were traditionally sites of resilience. Colonialism, development and globalisation have set in place processes by which the resilience has been reduced and exposure increased

Caught between the ideology and realities of development: Transiting from the Horn of Africa to Europe

While the teloi of development seeks to explicitly link an ideology of ‘market fundamentalism’to one of ‘rights-based development’, the reality of life for many in developing societies is characterized by growing inequality and despotic rule. In such situations many people leave in search of a better life or protection from persecution. This paper examines the hemorrhaging of people from Ethiopia and Eritrea and the obstacles they encounter as they cross international borders. It also examines the long term consequences which this population movement has for development in the Horn where, in the face of declining official aid flows, remittances from the Diaspora are likely to become increasingly important

Field Studies of the Archean in Grand Canyon

The oldest rocks of Arizona which form the precipitous walls of the inner or granite gorge of the Grand Canyon have never received the intensive study that has been given to their counterparts over the great northeastern plains of Canada, in the mountains of Scandinavia or on the rolling expanses of Finland. The metamorphosed rocks standing in places on end under the wedge of the Grand Canyon series of sediments (Algonkian) and elsewhere under the mantle of Paleozoic sediments are known as the Vishnu schist. To J.W. Powell these were known as the “Grand Canyon schists” of tentative “Eozoic” age. C.D. Walcott who proposed the term Vishnu from the occurrence beneath Vishnu temple in the Grand Canyon classified them as “bedded, sedimentary, unconformable, pre-Unkar (Lower Grand Canyon series) strata.