What Exactly Is the Yanomami Controversy?

The Larger Questions, continued . . .

Since anthropologists tend to come from countries that are more economically developed and militarily powerful than those they study, it is reasonable to ask, what ethical standards should govern how the more powerful use the intellectual and biological resources of the less powerful? Phrased another way, how does anthropology move beyond colonial practices built up when anthropologists mostly studied the subjugated peoples of imperial powers? What today constitutes a fair and just relationship among the parties concerned? Related to the inequality of power are the issues of informed consent, "doing no harm," and just compensation.

Today the first of these, informed consent, is required by almost all funding agencies supporting medical and social research. But how do anthropologists acquire permission from the people being studied? How does one explain a project to a group of people (or inform them) and gain their approval (or consent) when the project involves unfamiliar concepts and practices? Also relevant is the question of the duration of such consent. Is it a one-time thing, or do researchers need to gain it again as they find new ways to use and make money from the initial research that was never envisioned in the initial consent agreement?

The second is the anthropological injunction (embodied in the American Anthropological Association's code of ethics) to do no harm to those whom anthropologists study. What this means in practice—what specific actions this directive commits an anthropologist to—remains unclear. Remember that Chagnon, who essentially admitted in his own writings to violating this ethic, was lionized by many within the discipline.

We might, moreover, wonder why the focus is on doing no harm rather than on the third issue, offering just compensation to those who assisted in one's research. Anthropologists tend to present generous gifts to informants. But are such gifts sufficient compensation, given that anthropologists take the informants' information back to their universities and use it to build financially satisfying careers that often far exceed what their informants can expect in their own lives? Should these informants, who are living in less-privileged circumstances, be given the assistance to create better lives for themselves as well?

There are no easy answers here, and readers should not expect anthropology, by itself, to right the world's inequities. But these issues should be openly addressed. We need to consider how anthropology as a discipline might reach across the political and economic divides that separate researchers from informants and justly compensate those who help anthropologists build professional careers.

Most anthropologists care deeply about the people they work with. But they get caught up in broader power structures that keep the discipline from moving beyond the colonizing practices of times past. The persistence of such practices today is also a part of the Yanomami controversy.

This point leads to another, the issue of professional integrity. Is the American Anthropological Association's code of ethics simply a set of nice-sounding abstractions—window dressing to impress those beyond the discipline—or are anthropologists held accountable to the code in some way? What responsibilities does the code entail for individual anthropologists? What does it entail for the discipline as an organized profession? Some might prefer to deal with such questions in terms of abstract pronouncements (of shoulds and should nots), but the fact is that anthropologists cannot simply claim to be moral and expect others in nonacademic settings to trust them on that basis, especially given the discipline's record to date. Again, there are no easy answers. But we all need consider how to move anthropology beyond talking about morality to practicing a morality that embodies the best ideals of the discipline and that ensures a positive reception for us in places where our reputations precede us.

We need to also consider the way anthropologists tend to argue past one another in controversies such as this. Is anthropology simply a matter of vexation and debate—a form of entertainment for intellectual aficionados of the obscure—or is something approaching a consensus possible in a heated matter where the discipline's own behaviors are called into question? Are controversies such as this ever resolvable? Or do people simply give up arguing after a while and go on to something new?

For anthropology, Chagnon is the central character. The discipline embraced him and his work for years, making Yanomamö the best-selling ethnography in the past half-century. Understandably, partisans of Chagnon—and there are many in the discipline—tend to focus their criticism of Tierney on his account of Neel, reasoning that if Tierney's case is weakened in one area it is weakened in others. That is why the "Referendum on Darkness in El Dorado" (sponsored by Chagnon partisans and passed in October-November 2003 by the American Anthropological Association) focused on Tierney's fallacious claim that Neel helped make the measles epidemic worse. While Chagnon was a participant in Neel's project, he played a minor role in Neel's measles immunization campaign. Chagnon partisans downplay his violations of the association's ethical code and Venezuelan law. Partisans of Tierney, on the other hand, tend to pass over the charges against Neel and focus on Tierney's accusations against Chagnon, where they feel their case is stronger. One can often tell a person's position in the controversy simply by noting the topic he or she wishes to discuss.

As a result of these tactics, there have been few sustained, back-and-forth discussions between opposing partisans regarding the accusations surrounding Neel and Chagnon. Most of the time opposing partisans talk past one another. The only two sustained conversations I know of are in part 2 of Yanomami and the final report of the AAA's El Dorado Task Force.

In summary, beyond the accusations surrounding Neel, Chagnon, and Tierney, there are critical—indeed, from my perspective, far more critical—issues that need to be addressed in the controversy: those involving relations with informants as well as professional integrity and competence. Given how central these issues are to anthropology, readers can understand, perhaps, why many in the discipline have sought to sidestep the controversy. Confronting these issues will be hard. But the discipline needs to address them if it is to outgrow its image as an agent of colonizing powers and be both welcomed and understood outside the halls of academia.