Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 5(8), pp. 651 - 654
DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.050809
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Ethical and Moral Issues for Doing Fieldwork with Indigenous Peoples

David A. Hough ^*
Customary Law and Language Commission, Republic of the Marshall Islands

ABSTRACT

Based on more than 40 years of work with Indigenous peoples, but as a non-Indigenous linguist and educator myself, I ask in this paper what I believe to be some very crucial questions about the ethical responsibilities of non-Indigenous individuals - including those in the tourist industry - working in Indigenous communities. I begin the paper with an introduction of the sociohistorical conditions of 19^th century colonialism and how this shaped academic research on Indigenous peoples. During this period, anthropologists and linguists began to document the "primitive Other" as part of a project which became known as the science of race. While anthropological research supported colonization through ethnographic description, which portrayed Indigenous peoples through the lens of Eurocentric "Civilization," linguists were largely responsible for documenting Indigenous languages, often for the purpose of translating the bible in support of the Christianizing mission. Later they became occupied with cataloguing these same languages and cultures - now mysteriously "dying" - for the sake of academic and intellectual posterity. Following this sociohistorical critique, I look at how the legacy of researching the "Other" has continued in areas from academia and development schemes to tourism - and why Indigenous values and cultures continue to be denigrated and co-opted. Here, I argue that as outsiders we must learn how to privilege Indigenous cultures. I conclude the paper with a discussion of what this might mean in terms of working toward a code of ethics for non-Native researchers, which truly privileges Indigenous voices.

KEYWORDS
Decolonization, Fieldwork Ethics, Indigenous Peoples

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] David A. Hough , "Ethical and Moral Issues for Doing Fieldwork with Indigenous Peoples," Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 5, No. 8, pp. 651 - 654, 2017. DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.050809.

(b). APA Format:
David A. Hough (2017). Ethical and Moral Issues for Doing Fieldwork with Indigenous Peoples. Sociology and Anthropology, 5(8), 651 - 654. DOI: 10.13189/sa.2017.050809.