I wonder if political biases influenced the object...

2008-04-06T00:43:00.000-04:00

I wonder if political biases influenced the objective decision making processes of the AAA. I just wonder if their position would be the same if an anthropologist wanted to conduct a study with, say, the Zapatista Front for National Liberation.

It makes me think of a story my father told me when his academic department was trying increase faculty diversity. He raised his hand and asked, "Why don't we hire a Republican?" They still haven't.

[Originally posted March 19, 2008, but later corrected for egregious typos.]

2008-03-19T15:43:00.000-04:00

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Perhaps some anthropologist will weigh in, but it ...

2008-03-18T22:00:00.000-04:00

Perhaps some anthropologist will weigh in, but it seems to me that your work does bear similarities to the military's Human Terrain System Project, in which anthropologists worked alongside American troops. For reasons like those you mention--power relationships, conflicts of interest, the possibility of doing harm--anthropologists' participation in that project was condemned by the American Anthropological Association for just the reasons you mention. You should be glad you're a sociologist, not an anthropologist, I guess.

I quite agree that researchers, especially graduate students, should be encouraged to think through the ethical questions raised by their work, both in the planning stage and over the course of the research. Neither departments nor IRBs have shown themselves particularly good at this, which is why the search for alternative models is important.

Zach

That’s very interesting. I’m glad to know there ar...

2008-03-17T23:13:00.000-04:00

That’s very interesting. I’m glad to know there are some alternatives to an IRB. I wish them luck.

I have a three other thoughts which are hopefully relevant. Keep in mind that none of these thoughts was ever discussed with the IRB before my research began.

1) Sometimes it’s hard to even say who your research subjects will be. My research was about police. My research wasn’t really about those I policed, but of course at some level it is. I quote criminals and drug dealers and people I locked up (and normal good citizens, too). What was my duty to them? What about the harm I do to them? I’m actually arresting people in the course of my research.

How can a police officer with badge, handcuffs, and gun (and pen and paper) promise not to hurt somebody? I could have killed somebody. I don’t think the IRB would be too cool with that. Or was everything I did automatically OK because I was, by definition, on the right side of the law? Was my research ethical as long as I was playing “good” cop? What about being a cop in the war on drugs? How is that ethical if you think drugs should be legalized? But then should arresting criminals ever be considered a harm?

2) Of course I’m favorably biased toward my style of research because it’s what I did, but perhaps active-participant-observation research should be encouraged on ethical grounds. By actually being part of the police group I was studying, I was in a better position to judge the ethics of my research because I could apply it to myself (but this wouldn’t apply to those I policed).

I would argue that the active-participant-observation research is by its nature both more ethical and harder to get past an IRB (because you can’t describe events beforehand). There are many academic concerns about being active in the group you’re studying. But here I’m just focusing on the IRB (for some discussion related to P.O. research and “objectivity,” there’s a bit more at www.copinthehood.com).

3) There’s the issue of researcher ethics conflicting with police officer ethics. Cops have their own moral obligations (professionally and socially, legally and informally). Had there ever been a time when I had to chose between my obligation to the police and my obligation to the IRB, I would have gone with the police (of course, in the real world such dilemmas are never as clear as debating them in theory). I was paid to be a police officer, after all. To me, that trumped abstract theory about being a researcher.

Given that sentiment, how could an IRB ever approve a project where the researcher admits the committee is second to “other” concerns (even if these other concerns include an oath to defend the constitution)? I don’t think any IRB proposal to become a cop would ever pass muster. I don’t know of any.

I don’t see how being a police officer can be reconciled with the IRB. And yet what was so wrong with my research that it should have been preventing on principle? Who is to say that police officers can’t do ethical research? I sure hope not any university IRB. I hope nobody would advocate a blanket ban prohibiting police officers conducting academic research. What’s wrong with being a cop?

Of course these questions were avoided entirely in my interaction with the IRB. Any good system of review should have had me discuss these issues. Not necessarily to provide answers, but at least to make me ask these questions.

Comments on Institutional Review Blog: Maureen Fitzgerald's Ethics Project

I wonder if political biases influenced the object...

Perhaps some anthropologist will weigh in, but it ...

That’s very interesting. I’m glad to know there ar...