[Linganth] a query

[Judith Pine]

Hello all! I am working on an essay on ethics in linguistic anthropology, and I want to be sure that it covers all of the ground it ought to, and speaks to the widest range of our experience as linguistic anthropologists. I intend to include descriptions of some ethical dilemmas/types of dilemma, and I know that these things don't always make it into our published work.

I invite anyone who would be comfortable doing so to email me directly at judy.pine at wwu.edu<mailto:judy.pine at wwu.edu> with a brief description of an ethical dilemma you have encountered and how you addressed it. Please don't respond to the list.

My thesis on this topic (both for the essay and in "real life") is that research/scholarly ethics is a discursive field within which imperfect humans balance incompletely understood costs and benefits, doing our best to be as fully and explicitly aware of our choices as we can, and recognizing that there is no perfect or absolute answers. In that context, I do want to highlight those elements to which we ought, as professionals, to be directing our attention as we make ethical decisions. I am a firm believer that many of these elements come to light only after we have engaged them, often when we have made mistakes, and that we can learn from one another's' mistakes to at least some extent. That is the purpose of this effort to collect anecdotes, which I will use to inform my writing.

Should I use some quite specific case (rather than a compilation or discussion of a type), I will of course notify the individual whose story I am using and only use it with their permission. While this is not research in the classic sense, it does fall under the broad umbrella of doing linguistic anthropology, requiring that you all be aware of what I am doing, that persons whose specific information I use give permission, and that I share the final result.

Thank you for your time and attention.


-          Judy

Judith M.S. Pine
Assoc. Professor
Dept of Anthropology
Western Washington University

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