What is the extent to which anthropologists should become involved in, and possibly alter, the experiences of the people they conduct participant observation among (Burr, 2004)?
In her article we find that burr was tasked with observing children who were categorized in living with difficult circumstances, such as those living on the streets, orphanages, or reform schools. Burr during her fieldwork encountered situations where she knew that the boys were partaking in illicit drugs such as heroin and opium, tattooing each other with shared needles, and in some cases even having sexual relations with one another. During her fieldwork, Burr found that many of these boys were contracting AIDS from one another, due to the sharing of heroin needles. …show more content…
Ethics is defined as the moral question of right and wrong and standards of appropriate behavior (Welsch, 2015). In my opinion Burr, made the correct ethical choices whilst conducting her fieldwork in Vietnam. She chose not to jeopardize the credibility her organization had at the school, which in turn allowed for the support services they were being offered to continue, as well as the continuation of NGO’s to work there. If I were faced the same situation that Burr was in, I would make the same choices that she made, because of the favorable outcome it had instilled. Although nothing was done to save the boys who currently were facing the health risks, future generations of orphans and students in the reform school would avoid these risks. I also would have to take into consideration the ethnography or as L. Kaifka Roland likes to call it “a portrait of the people” (Roland, 2011) of Vietnam at the time, which is very different from our culture. From Burr’s social worker point of view and the views of the Vietnamese people, we can see the varying differences in out Ethnography. We see in the article where Burr worked with many children that lived on the street, very much opposite of the United States sheltering many of these homeless kids. The Vietnamese also had a firm belief that children were unable to contract HIV, contradictory to Burr’s findings and beliefs. They even refused Burr, a credible anthropologist, to having the children she worked with to be
In her article we find that burr was tasked with observing children who were categorized in living with difficult circumstances, such as those living on the streets, orphanages, or reform schools. Burr during her fieldwork encountered situations where she knew that the boys were partaking in illicit drugs such as heroin and opium, tattooing each other with shared needles, and in some cases even having sexual relations with one another. During her fieldwork, Burr found that many of these boys were contracting AIDS from one another, due to the sharing of heroin needles. …show more content…
Ethics is defined as the moral question of right and wrong and standards of appropriate behavior (Welsch, 2015). In my opinion Burr, made the correct ethical choices whilst conducting her fieldwork in Vietnam. She chose not to jeopardize the credibility her organization had at the school, which in turn allowed for the support services they were being offered to continue, as well as the continuation of NGO’s to work there. If I were faced the same situation that Burr was in, I would make the same choices that she made, because of the favorable outcome it had instilled. Although nothing was done to save the boys who currently were facing the health risks, future generations of orphans and students in the reform school would avoid these risks. I also would have to take into consideration the ethnography or as L. Kaifka Roland likes to call it “a portrait of the people” (Roland, 2011) of Vietnam at the time, which is very different from our culture. From Burr’s social worker point of view and the views of the Vietnamese people, we can see the varying differences in out Ethnography. We see in the article where Burr worked with many children that lived on the street, very much opposite of the United States sheltering many of these homeless kids. The Vietnamese also had a firm belief that children were unable to contract HIV, contradictory to Burr’s findings and beliefs. They even refused Burr, a credible anthropologist, to having the children she worked with to be