I believe a common moral dilemma faced by ethnographers might be that, within the research field, they are subject to or observe illegal activities or abuse of some kind -but cannot act for fear of jeopardizing the research. This occurrence makes a lot of sense and can even seem justified from a research standpoint. However, it seems there are certain moral principles that should be adhered to, regardless of research.
In order to address this problem as an ethnographer, I would align myself with some form of law enforcement. Rather than simply observe abuse and crime with no power whatsoever, I would utilize the collected data for 2 purposes -one being research, and the other, detective work. Now, I realize how romantic and over the top this proposal seems, but why not? If one can collect data for research, why not also collect data to be used by the police as evidence? It certainly would be an exciting resolution to the problem!
No comments:
Post a Comment