Ethical problems, emerging in the work of an anthropologist/ethnologist, are the subject matter of the current Pro Ethnologia, being the 13th in the sequence. The authors analyze whether and how, in what kind of forms and choices do the ethical issues affect the work process of researchers, and in what and how does this reveal itself.
At first sight, it might be possible to claim that Estonian ethnologists have become conscious of ethical problems relatively recently, as the raising of such issues in articles and discussions can be found only in the 1990s. Actually, ethical problems arose in front of Estonian ethnologists already during the 2nd half of the 1940s. Following the incorporation of Estonia into the Soviet Union, the (then) Estonian ethnography was also merged with the school of Soviet ethnography. The ruling regime set a task in front of the ethnographers to prove that the Soviet culture and everyday life was an ideal final phase of the development (of the humankind). Political task-setting determined the directions and methods for the research of the entire culture and society. Therefore, each researcher was facing an option - how and to what extent to fulfil the political order? It was not always that the researchers themselves had to make the choices themselves, in the situation where they were liquidated either physically or mentally. The ones who remained and the newcomers could not escape from the making of choices. Regarding the latter, it would be appropriate to point at the problem whether to research the contemporary Soviet state-of-the-art or not. How open may one be with an honest informant? These questions needed both the collective answer and an individual response by each researcher. These were the questions and choices that were made inside and not spoken about publicly. The small amount of researches dedicated to the Soviet era and backwardness of contemporary research methods provide evidence of certain collective preferences.
In several instances, the question about ethics was receded to an inquiry about objectivity, about the size and reliability of utilized source material.
Such questions do not exist for the ethnologists/anthropologists of the newly independent Estonia, current problems and choices are of different quality.
Thus, it might be said that aspects related with ethical values in the anthropological/ethnological research are not a new issue, neither for the researchers of the world, nor for the ones in Estonia. What is new is the importance attributed to ethics and its conscious treatment in these disciplines. The number of discussions and writings in the subject matter of ethics has been constantly increasing, as the considering of ethical aspects has become ever more significant in the changing world. New realities are confronting anthropologists/ethnologists.
In parallel with understanding the relevance of ethical problems, the conception that these problems will remain to exist and cannot have a single and clear solution, is becoming more and more prevalent. The continuing discussion regarding the issues of research ethics is of primary importance, relying on the sharing and exchange of opinions and experience.
Proceeding from the latter, the subject matter of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Estonian National Museum, taking place in Tartu, from 9 to 10 April 2001, was the Ethics of Cultural Research. A selection of the reports delivered at the conference will be currently presented to the readers in the format of articles, thus reflecting the questions asked and solutions found at the conference.
The real beginning of the work of and ethnologist/anthropologist is considered the moment when the researcher arrives his/her field. Here, the differences in ethical problems proceed from the relations between the researcher and his/her field.
Alexandra Bobretsova from the Komi Science Centre in Syktyvkar dissects the problem of how to concurrently be the researcher and also the member of the researched group. Bobretsova, originating from a family of Old-Believers, presents and analyses the field work experience carried out since 1993, among the Old-Believers of her homeland, the Ust-Tsilma region in the Komi Republic. She provides an honest analysis about the growing into a researcher, and on the other hand, about the development of the community, in its way, to achieve real trust and cooperation with her as a researcher. Similarly, the author also talks about the efforts she had made so as to keep a distance from the researched community.
In the 1980s, Marika Mikkor, the researcher of the ENM, went on several expeditions to the Estonians living in Transcaucasia. Reaching the location again in the second half of the 1990s, the researcher encountered a qualitatively different situation in the field. The previously favoured tourism paradise had turned in the theatre of war and the people who had helped Mikkor during her earlier study trips, now appealed to her in search of assistance. What is the position the researcher appears to be in? What are her choices? How and whether is it possible to avoid taking sides in such a situation? The author describes and justifies her options - as she did not remove herself from the grief of the researched people. The article ends with recognition - at one particular moment, it was necessary to cut myself off from the field as it become more and more exhaustible emotionally.
Johanna Latvala, from the University of Jyvskyl, writes about her field work experiences in Nairobi, Kenya, among urban middle class families. At first sight, this would be a classical fieldwork situation in anthropology: the researcher is from the West, subjects of the research are people in the Third World. Latvala analyses her fieldwork situation which did not have to do with the classically old, oppressed and uneducated the Other; instead, her informants were strong, intelligent and self-confident, highly educated women. The author is of the opinion that tantamount discussion in the field occurs when both parties take their positions in an equal manner and manage to indent uneasiness in their dialogue. Finally, the reporter admits that regardless the fact that reflexive methodology and dialogical anthropology (what she was using) enable more equal research - they also create new ethical dilemmas (e.g. in relationships between researcher and the informant).
Tatyana Boulgakova from St. Petersburg analyses the problems concurrent with the study of a worldview, different of that of the researcher. The author draws attention to the contradictions emerging when the researcher does not understand the explanations of the researched due to his/her world outlook, when in the course of the analysis, he/she ignores what the informant regards to be of relevance. Boulgakova claims that in such a case, the ethnographical description of the alien culture cannot be trustworthy. She illustrates her allegations with various examples of how to interpret shamanic self-wounding: how sundry researchers have interpreted this, and for comparison, presents the opinion of the bearers of tradition themselves. Here, Boulgakova relies on her fieldwork among bearers of Nanai tradition.
Alexander Tshuvyurov, from the Russian Ethnographical Museum in St. Petersburg, proceeds from the subject matter elaborated by the previous writer: how the subjective understandings, goals and worldview affect the interpretation. He analyses written materials and sources reflecting the presentation of the culture of Komi Old-Believers in Komi ethnography (earlier Russian and Finnish researchers, Soviet researchers). The author indicates how discrepancies in presented fieldwork materials derive from the different goals of the scientists, from what they intended to see as characteristic of the researched group. He underlines the fact that the results of field work are also linked with the relationships between the researcher and the researched, influenced, besides other matters, by the professional preparation of the researcher.
Irena Regiena Merkiene from the Institute of the History of Lithuania in Vilnius provides an analyzing overview of the ethics of ethnographic field research in 20th century Lithuania. During the first half of the century, researchers, in the collection of their materials, primarily relied on an informant (who was obligatorily an aged person) rather than on an expert. The situation changed in the second half of the century: folk culture was seen as anonymous, as the creation of the people as a whole. A concrete informant was not relevant any more, the emphasis was laid on collective opinion. In conjunction with societal upheaval - industrialization and urbanization, it became clear that culture encompassed all social strata, that culture is a diverse individual experience. Respondents copyright to rendered information became a more prevalent apprehension. During the last quarter of the 20th century, the informants lost their role as the expert, the know-it all, and they were seen as personalities, individuals, together with their experience, skills and understandings to create culture. This is how the dialogue between the informant and the collector is being created. In addition, Merkiene emphasizes that until the end of the 20th century, the relationships between the informant and the data collector were based on traditional oral agreements.
Merkiene analyses the changing relations of the researcher and that of the informant on the Lithuanian example, but similar development is also generally characteristic of relevant processes in Estonia of the 20th century.
Pauliina Latvala from the University of Helsinki weighs the ethical issues in such delicate source as the written life history material. Her analysis is based on the Finnish contest of life histories, the Great Narrative of Kin (Suvun Suuri Kertomus). The author points out 3 problems, that she regards to be of most relevance in the life history material: 1) who do these narratives represent, whose narratives are they? At this point, Latvala draws attention to the fact that among other matters, the texts reveal who has requested and ordered them. 2) Who can use these texts, who can they be disclosed to? What are the consequences of the more wide disclosure? And the third problem outgrows from the second one: 3) are the authors aware of the disclosure and what would be the concurrent emerging problems?
During the last decade, the collection of life history material has become extraordinarily popular also in Estonia, thus the ethical problems raised by Pauliina Latvala are becoming likewise extremely topical in our country.
The last article of the collection deals with ethics in visual anthropology. Pille Runnel (ENM) analyses ethnographicity and ethics in the documentaries completed in Estonia during the 1990s. She highlights the two possible levels in this part of the Estonian documentary films which, according to her, may be regarded as ethnographic. First, the artistic treatment of the subject matter, where the ethnographic other is being used for the presentation of the message of the author of the film.
Secondly, she refers to films dealing with ethnographic subject matter, also including an ethnologist among the members of the filmmakers. Runnel analyses the films on the culture of one ethnic group, the Setus, made with the participation of Mare Piho, the researcher of the ENM, being of Setu origin herself. These are films where the insider of the culture mediates her culture by way of certain ideas. At the end, Runnel notes that it is not expedient to talk about the implementation of ethnographic research method in the case of the Estonian documentaries of the 1990s.
Pro Ethnologia, commencing publication in 1993, and having a dozen editions by now, has become a regular output of Estonian ethnologists/anthropologists, and similarly of their foreign colleagues.
The objective of the editors is the continuation of the quality development of the journal. We want our periodical to be a concise contemporary edition, enabling the attraction of the interest of the ever increasing audience.
For the achievement of such goals, the editorial board of the periodical is currently under creation, and lo Valk, the Professor of Estonian and comparative folklore at the University of Tartu, and Tatyana Boulgakova, Associate Professor of the St. Petersburgs Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia have readily given their consent to belong within its composition. Similarly, the design of Pro Ethnologia is also undergoing changes. The editorial staff of the magazine expresses their sincere gratitude to the authors and reviewers.
We give thanks to the Finnish Institute for their support in the organization of the 42nd Conference of the Estonian National Museum and to all whom contributed to the conducting of the conference.
