Terry Kelly And Rose Stone Ethical Analysis

Every day, those in social science aim to do research while remaining ethical. Some situations involve tough decisions based on ethics, and cannot always be looked at in the cultural perspective of the one doing research. Such cases are beneficial and can help educate others about the decisions anthropologists have to make without being ethnocentric. Two anthropologists, Terry Kelly and Rose Stone, were given tough situations revolving around ethics. In the end, they both made the right decisions because they maintained the ideas of the cultures, and did not change their environments. The first case involves a woman named Terry Kelly. Since her fieldwork involved being in a region with Malaria, she was given a lot of medication by the …show more content…
Anthropologists aim to understand a culture in their setting, and maintain their way of life. Had Kelly given out the drugs, she would be changing how they cope with Malaria, which is also unethical in the terms of Anthropology. It would also be unethical in the terms that she would have to pick and choose who to give the medication to. Plus, field work does not last forever, which means the culture would not have access after she leaves. The second case, like Kelly’s, also questioned the moral standpoint, but it did so in a different manner. It revolves around an anthropologist who had fieldwork in an urban area where low income was prominent. Rose Stone, the anthropologist, accepted clothes from a resident as a gift, even with the knowledge that the clothes were …show more content…
Since she is doing fieldwork to understand the culture, it is important for her to accept the culture. People who have low income cannot always afford gifts, and it is accepted in their region by others to take the clothing. It is necessary for her to understand the culture, and part of understanding means questioning things one has been taught are wrong. However, as one of the readers pointed out: she should have asked about the gifts the resident was giving her just for clarification and further understanding of the urban culture. These cases question ethical decisions made by anthropologists. They are necessary questions because an anthropologist aims to do what is needed for their fieldwork, without offending or changing the culture they are studying. What our culture finds ethical may not be ethical to bring into another one. For example, some groups of people believe in natural healing as opposed to medicine. If one wants to truly understand a culture, they have to adapt as much as they can in order for ethics. Cases such as these are important for future anthropological research because they can be examples of problems people who do field work tend to