Research Ethics, Consent, and Harm
Key terms and cases from the AAA ethics principles and ethnographic consent practice.
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Questions Covered in This Set
10 cards to master
What document lists the AAA's seven ethics principles?
The Principles of Professional Responsibility (current version, 2012), issued by the American Anthropological Association.
What is the first and anchoring AAA principle?
Do no harm — the obligation to the people, species, and materials studied can supersede the goal of seeking new knowledge.
Why is ethnography ethically distinctive?
Because the method is intimacy: anthropologists move into people's lives long-term rather than administering a survey and leaving, creating obligations a consent form cannot discharge.
Why does the biomedical consent form travel badly into fieldwork?
Fieldwork is open-ended so topics drift; literacy, legal status and power vary; and group politics mean a leader's permission isn't individual consent.
When is oral consent more ethical than a signature?
When signing endangers the participant — e.g., asking an undocumented worker to put their name on a document; the researcher documents oral consent in notes.
What five elements belong in an oral consent script?
Who I am; what I'm doing and why; what I'll do with what I learn and who reads it; that you may refuse, stop, or go off the record without consequence; how I'll protect your identity and the limits of that protection.
Why can a pseudonym fail to protect anonymity?
In a small community one identifying detail (e.g., 'the only woman welder in town') re-identifies the person despite the fake name.
What was Project Camelot (1964–65)?
A U.S. Army–funded study in Chile modeling causes of insurgency — counterinsurgency research dressed as scholarship; its exposure pushed the AAA to codify ethics.
What was the Human Terrain System (2007–2014)?
A Pentagon program embedding social scientists with combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, echoing the 1970 Thailand counterinsurgency controversy.
Why must field records be protected and preserved?
Principle 6: records carry ongoing confidentiality obligations, and field materials can be subpoenaed.
