Piercing the veil: ethical issues in ethnographic research.
It is not unusual for researchers in ethnography (and sometimes Institutional Review Boards) to assume that research of "public" behavior is morally unproblematic. I examine an historical case of ethnographic research and the sustained moral outrage to the research expressed by the subjects of that research. I suggest that the moral outrage was legitimate and articulate some of the ethical issues underlying that outrage. I argue that morally problematic Ethnographic research of public behavior can derive from research practice that includes a tendency to collapse the distinction between harm and moral wrong, a failure to take account of recent work on ethical issues in privacy; failure to appreciate the deception involved in ethnographers' failure to reveal their role as researchers to subjects and finally a failure to appropriately weigh the moral significance of issues of invasion of privacy and inflicted insight in both the research process and subsequent publication of research.
Schrag
Brian
B
Indiana University, 618 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. bschrag@indiana.edu
D000884:Anthropology, Cultural / Q000941:ethics / Q000266:history*; D008192:Deception; D032984:Ethics, Research / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000941:ethics / Q000266:history*; D007494:Ireland; D009014:Morals; D018907:Privacy