Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Direct and Indirect Observation 437
be a better person,’’ ‘‘to teach our children good values.’’ Hardly anyone says
‘‘to dress up and look good in front of other people,’’ ‘‘to meet potential golf
partners for later this Sunday afternoon,’’ ‘‘to maximize my ability to meet
potential mates whose ethnic and social backgrounds are compatible with my
own.’’ Yet, we know that these last three reasons are what some people would
say if they thought others wouldn’t disapprove.
Finally, you may have some qualms about the ethics of obtrusive observation.
It cannot be said too often that every single data collection act in the
field has an ethical component, and a fieldworker is obliged every single time
to think through the ethical implications of data collection acts. Personally, I
have less difficulty with the potential ethical problems of obtrusive, reactive
observation than I do with any other data collection method, including participant
observation. In obtrusive observation, people actually see you (or a camera)
taking down their behavior, and they can ask you to stop. Nothing is
hidden.
In participant observation, we try to put people at ease, make them forget
we’re really listening hard to what they’re telling us, and get them to ‘‘open
up.’’ We ask people to take us into their confidence and we are handed the
responsibility for not abusing that confidence.
But the method that presents the most ethical problems is unobtrusive, nonreactive
direct observation.
Unobtrusive Observation
Disguised field observation is the ultimate in participant observation—you
join, or pretend to join, some group and secretly record data about people in
the group.
In 1960, John H. Griffin, a white journalist, went through some drug treatment
to temporarily turn his skin black. He traveled the southern United States
for about a month, taking notes on how he was treated. His book, Black Like
Me (1961) was a real shocker. It galvanized a lot of support by Whites in the
North for the then fledgling Civil Rights movement. Clearly, Griffin engaged
in premeditated deception in gathering the data for his book. But Griffin was
a journalist; scientists don’t deceive their informants, right?
Pseudopatients and Simulated Clients
Wrong. Samuel Sarkodie, an M.A. student in medical sociology at the University
of Legon, in Ghana, spent 3 days in a rural hospital in 1994 as a pseudopatient
with a false case of malaria. The hospital staff were in on the