Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal ofAnthropology

Volume 11 | Issue 1 Article 6

6-21-2011

The Tricky/Trickster Role of the Anthropologist:Ethical Dilemmas of the ConsultantAnthropologist in Papua New GuineaSacha GeerThe University of Western Ontario

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Recommended CitationGeer, Sacha (2003) "The Tricky/Trickster Role of the Anthropologist: Ethical Dilemmas of the Consultant Anthropologist in PapuaNew Guinea," Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology: Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 6.Available at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem/vol11/iss1/6

The Tricky/Trickster Role of the Anthropologist: Ethical Dilemmas of theConsultant Anthropologist in Papua New Guinea

KeywordsPapua New Guinea, consultant, ethics, development

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This article is available in Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem/vol11/iss1/6

The Trickyffrickster Role of theAnthropologist: Ethical Dilemmas of

the Consultant Anthropologist inPapua New Guinea

It is for each individual to work out forthemselves their own moral boundmies, tounderstand and delimit that with which she orhe would or would not be involved. Foranthropologists, members of a discipline thathas for decades been the scapegoat of the socialsciences as the hand-maidens of colonialoppressors, these limits need to be moreexplicit, more fully internalized and reckonedwith. Globalization, as a process, is not new.nor are its effects fully determinable prior toanyone action. In recent years, as globalcapital and technology move with greaterrapidity towards what were once seeminglyunreachable corners of the eal1h.anthropologists, generally Westerners who havestudied these seemingly exotic corners. arebeing hired to come along for the lide in a newnon-academic form. The vogue of developmentand its popular conception as having asynonymy with progress and globalization an:issues which must be addressed.

As a student at the beginning of myacademic career, I feel I can address thequestions and concerns about the ethicalresponsibilities of the consultant anthropologistwith the reference and reverence due to thosewho have negotiated these uicky situationsbefore me. I am faced with many disconcertingquestions: I want to know about the role of theanthropologist who works outside of anacademic system, who lends their skills andknowledge gained by virtue of their researchand training to systems and processes that ha\'ereasons for entering these 'exotic' far reaches of

the earth very different than those of the pursuitof ethnographic inquiry. Rooted in theseconcerns are issues of responsibility, obligation,confidentiality, ownership and the inherent valueof academia.

As a 'fledgling anthropologist", many ofmy peers will either eschew the life of academiafor work in consultancy and developmentsituations or attempt to maintain the difficult anddelicate balance between academia and what weglibly term 'the real world', Before I or anyanthropologist does this, we need to puzzle thesequestions out for ourselves.

It is my feeling that the work ofanthropology stm1s with an enormous gift-thatof being allowed to immerse, as much as anoutsider can, into another population' s culture andlives. I wonder however, if this gift does not alsoincur an enormous debt. If such a debt (one morefigurative than literal) is accrued, how is it oneretains their position and their positionality whilefulfilling these obligations. I need, we need, eachof us, to decide what we mean when we tellothers that we hope to become an anthropologistof worth.

That being said, and with these lovely,lofty aspirations in mind, I will attempt to puzzlethrough a number of questions that seem to me tobe ethical dilemmas. Exactly what are the ethicalimpasses that arise if an anthropologist works inan applied or consultancy situation for a capitalistenterprise? I will be focusing on a pm1icular kindof consultancy with reference to Papua NewGuinea and mining to ground my questions. Isthere difference between working for a companyand working for a local population as ananthropologist for hire? What about working forthe state, or an NGO? Are the ground rulesdifferent in this case? Where can ananthropologist draw the line between fulfilling adebt and being complicit in destruction-thoughwith the best of intentions? These questions arenot entirely all personal or related to theanthropologist as an individuaL questions

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surrounding academic freedom, co-optation andownership of research impact the discipline as awhole and therefore must also be examined.

I find myself incredibly uncomfortable,both personally, and in reference to thediscipline under which I hope to serve (andserve is a word I choose quite deliberately).when issues of research for money outside thescope of academia are brought to the fore.There is some very questionable ground that ananthropologist walks on in terms of her or hisown legitimacy when she or he enters into aconsultancy situation wherein they recognizingthat she or he is being paid by a group (in thecase of this piece, a mining company) that doesnot have the noblest of intentions, regardless oftheir purported or real purity of intent. Yet formost anthropologists, the argument most oftenmade for involvement as a consultant is onebased on emotion. and with the noblest ofintentions in mind. Escobar (1991) writes thatthe most common reason for involvement in thedevelopment process is that non-involvementwould be more detlimental to people inpositions of poverty because without theintervention of the anthropologist (or socialscientist) one is assured of failure. In otherwords, we know as anthropologists that adevelopment project will fail regardless, buthope that if we accept a consultancy position wemay lessen the burden on the local who will beaffected. I would argue that until thedevelopment process uses methods andindicators of success that would makeanthropological intervention fruitful. one issimply being paid to be complicit in the system:as a result, one's position as an academic tocliticize these wrong-doings is compromised.These statements may seem Draconian. but thediscipline's history bears the scars of thesemisjudgments.

In 1972, Jasper Ingersoll wrote aboutthe situation of anthropologists in de\'c1opmel1las having "an old hate relationship and a newlove affair". He argue that anthropologists.while often involved in developmcnt projects asconsultants, have little effect on the design andimplementation of projects bccausc thoscprojects are conceived through the lens ofeconomic growth and use measurcs such asGNP for evidence of success. Somc wouldargue that little has changed sincc 1972. Butthe question that Ingersoll's work spawns is oncthat I will return to later. Does thc fact that ananthropologist's work will be negatcd by \inucof the design and implicit goals of a projcct

mean that she or he should disavow themselves ofthe process entirely, and thus ensure that therewill be no pertinent analysis?

As a discipline, anthropology began withhighly applied goals. Colonial and post colonialattempts to define the exotic 'other' foradministrative and colonial use by way of fundinganthropologists for their research has left a mar onthe discipline. (Wilkins 1982: 112). In the1950s, coincident with the spread of anthropologydepartments at many universities. a shift awayfrom this policy Oliented fieldwork began.Wilkins argues: "a professional socialanthropology, created a body of published workwhich might be used for policy applications, butwhich was not, as a rule, generated by policyquestions" was created (ibid.:114). Recentlyhowever, the rise of multinational corporationsand increased and faster links between countriesand peoples in a time when many countries areenteling their post-colonial stage, has led to thecall for anthropologists to return to working withan eye towards policy. business agreements.expert testimony. etc.

I have chosen as ethnographic groundsto explore my dilemmas the country of PapuaNew Guinea. This country has been an arena ofvast anthropological research for many decades.Since independence in 1975, there have beenseveral enormous mining projects working in thecountry. Mostly in isolated areas. these projectscharacteristically involve complicatednegotiations with disenfranchised and relativelyremote groups of people over compensation, landownership, employment and environmentaldegradation. Because of the capital intensivenature of these projects. they are run almostexclusively by large multinational corporationsfrom South East Asia and beyond. Thesetransnational corporations are, however,welcomed by government and citizens becausethe projects are equated with economic and oftencultural development. not to mention access togoods and services not easily provided by thestate alone. Thus in Papua New Guineadevelopment is equatcd with investment as wellas major resource extraction.

What makcs this situation especiallypertinent for the purposes of this study is thatPapua New Guinea law requires that mining andother companies commission social impactstudies in order that potential social and economicproblems might be idcntified. Anthropologistswho have long worked in these proposed miningareas are often hired to write these studies anddeal with other problems that involve 'traditional

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communities' of Papua New Guinea. Theseprojects are notOliously ill-fated, the scale ofsocial disruption and environmental catastropheis similar in many ways to the problemsexperienced by other massive developmentprojects. Strathell1 and Stewart argue, even forthose not working as consultants "the arena ofresearch in general, especially in places affectedby large scale development projects, is ratherlike a minefield through which researchers mustpick their way" (200 I: 5). I will return to hisquestion of the anthropologist working within asituation that he or she knows will be disruptivea little later. It is a question more contingent onfactors personal to the anthropologist, although,the following will show, that it is difficult toseparate the personal from the professional in asituation such as this. It is prudent to firstoutline the ways in which I believe the appliedanthropologist who works for groups other thantheir own group of study is compromised.

The analogy of a minefield isextremely useful for the purposes of thisdiscussion. Using a series of papers written byvarious anthropologists who have worked invarious applied and academic positions inPapua New Guinea for development and otherpurposes as a base from which to construct myargument. I am forced to ask questions thatrelate to the people under study, the legitimacyof the discipline, and the personal integrity ofconsultant anthropologists. Previously, myprimary concern had been to separate all of myquestions into neat categories, to see whichissue would affect which of the three abovecategories, but as Strathern and Stewart argue:

There is a sense thatconsultancy work is unusualand is enclaved away from thesupposed mainstream array oftopics. We maintain that arigid compartmentalization ofthe work of anthropologicalconsultancy within thediscipline as a whole isunrealistic. Theory, analysis,description and practice needto be related to one another,and the pragmatic problemsthe ethical questions, and theimponderabilities of makingappropriate theoreticalanalyses which face theanthropologist as generalethnographer. The question

of analysis of material inrelation to policy aims isparticularly and obviouslycrucial (2001: 8).

One of the issues that we have to consider is theactual work that is produced by the consultantanthropologist. Unlike academic resear'ch, whereanthropologists have a general idea of what theywould like to study but let the course offieldwork ultimately determine what is mostcogent to write about, consultants working in andaround development projects are much moreconstrained. Rohatynskyj did her work in PapuaNew Guinea as a consultant hired by the Tolai tosurvey the ethic groups surrounding themselves.This in itself is a strange position to be in-onewhich does not necessarily fit into the scope ofthis work .. Important, however, is Rohatynskyj'sdiscussion of the consultant's report.

The parameter's of theconsultant's report are set bythe terms of reference of theresearch agreed to by thecontractor and the researcher aswell as the author'sappreciation of the terms inwhich results will most readilybe accepted ... The relationshipbetween the audience and theresearcher becomes moreemphasized than the onebetween the researcher and thecommunity of study in theformulation of the text of thereport (2001: 24 emphasisadded).

Compromise it seems is inherent in theformulation of a consultant's report. My problemhere is not so much the fact that consultants arenot able to produce academic writing, rather thatthose who are producing these consultant'srepOlts are academics. As academics, all wehave is our name, and the backing of aninstitution from which comes our academicfreedom. To work as a consultant is to co-opt thelegitimacy that comes with the title ofanthropologist and use it to produce work that issubject to a vastly different set of restraints.Rohatynskyj would disagree with me here. Sheargues:

The ethics of academic researchare not so clearly

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distinguishable from those ofcontracted research,especially as we have come toappreciate the long and shOltterm impact of ourethnographic wliting on theidentity construction ofgroups within regional andglobal systems (2001: 37).

I find this questionable. The issue of shOlt termversus long-term impact has clearlydistinguishable charactelistics for the academicversus consultant researcher. In theory, theacademic researcher, if cognizant ofdetrimental effects that could come about as aresult of her or his work, has the benefit ofpseudonyms to protect those about whom theyshe or he is writing. Moreover, the academicwrites within a system of constant peercriticism and rebuttal. One only had to think ofthe decades long feud between E. R. Leach andClaude Levi-Strauss to see the way in whichacademic debate over one another's ideas andpostulations can change the shape of thediscipline (Tambiah: 2002). The contractedresearcher does not have this benefit orobligation to make her or his work stand up tocliticism. It is wlitten by academics withclaims to authority and legitimacy but does notstand for criticism by peers. It is my belief thatthe strongest criticism-the most cogent way tofulfill one's moral bounds cannot and does notcome from a consultant position wherein thecontracting company makes claims ofobjectivity, authority and legitimacy by virtueof their purchase of the work of theanthropologist. Further, the areas of interestthat are set out before fieldwork begins, asmentioned, bind the contracted researcher.

The academic anthropologist alwayshas the option of choosing not to speak of aparticular area of concern. Lorenzo Brutti(2001: 94) says that consultancy is a "take it orleave it situation". The length of contract isgenerally very binding. If one needs more time,or the topic does not fit nicely within theresearcher's interests or comfort level, toobad ... she or he has already been paid. Thisdoes not work nicely with the rigors and evenconstraints of academic research, where grantsfor funding are based on time and topics well,but are generally not revoked if the researcherstrays from the initial topic or finds results notexpected. In shOlt, the problem here is that thecontractor has a stake in the content of the

applied researcher's work, whereas the academicfunding institution or group has a stake only inthe quality.

Time constraints are one of the moreimportant ways in which anthropologists arecompromised in consultancy positions. Moreimportant than the tinling of the contract. is thelength of time in the field. Rohatynskyj writesthat she wanted to spend at least one month ineach of twelve different sites to prepare herreport, but in fact "This proved unrealisticbecause of expense, needs to conform to other 'stransportation schedules .. .In effect, I was doingcultural survey work and had to adjust mymethodology" (200 I: 30). The problem miseswhen Rohatynskyj is commissioned as ananthropologist, and then uses methods which arenot conducive to anthropological study. Herresults, which she admits suffer because of thatcompromise, are still viewed by wider audiencesas the work of an anthropologist and given thecredit and authOlity due work of that caliber.Anthropology is unique among the social sciencesfor its insistence on long periods of fieldwork. Asa consultant who is accredited to be ananthropologist who does not follow the basicstrictures of the discipline, does Rohatynskyj notdo a discredit both to the discipline and to herown credibility? The immediate response to thisline of inquiry would be to say that Rohatynskyjwas not commissioned to write an academic pieceand therefore is not to be held up to thosestandards. The reports that are produced byconsultants for the state, a corporation or an NGOfall into the realm of grey literature (Bryant andBailey: 1997). That is, literature that is moreaccessible to public consumption. It is nothowever, acadenlic discourse, though it may beperceived as such and given the stead dueacademic discourse because of theanthropological credentials of the author.Rohatynskyj says that there are ways in whichone can frame their work and still implicate theircontractor in a manner that would allow her toremain, to herself at least, ethically viable. But Ifind this a little hard to take. It seems that oncean anthropologist accepts money for fees outsideof the realm of acadenlia, there is some form ofidentity shift. even if only in terms of othersperceptions that is not easily negotiated.

In addition to the time and scope ofcontracts and repOlts, the applied or consultantresearcher does not own the work produced, afactor which to me may be the single mostimportant reason for my discOmfOlt. Academicsare able to work within a system of academic

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freedom. They are free to wlite whatever theydesire with relative protection by virtue of theirassociation with academia. This means thateven great criticism can be made without fear ofviolating a contractual agreement. Theacademic who begins her or his career canextrapolate from her or his research to grandertheory and more wide ranging ideas which, inturn, may be applied to other situations.Consultants are most often bounds by non-disclosure agreements. This means that thework that they produce is not owned bythemselves to do with what they wish, but is theproperty of the contractor. In the case of PapuaNew Guinea, consultant anthropologistsgenerally come into the contract position havingdone some fieldwork in the area and are hiredfor that reason. Their report. either lauding orcritical of the contractors to whom they arebound, is generally given only to thegovernment or to the company which contractedthe report. thus fulfilling the legal requirementof the country but often not working in anycatalytic manner to change or better the lives ofthose whom they are writing about. Thus thereis little that is accomplished besides theexchange of money. Dan Jorgensen. ananthropologist with considerable experienceworking in Papua New Guinea notes that it isgenerally extremely difficult for anyone to get acopy of these reports (personal conespondence.2002). If granted, they are generally through'someone who knows some one who can get aphotocopy'. While often argued that the onlypersons who read academic anthropologicalliterature are other anthropologists. at least inthe case of the academic. findings are publishedin the public domain and therefore are bothopen to critical debate and less likely to beentrenched as suggestions of 'truth'. There aresome notable exceptions to this rule. includingthe recently published set of reports sunoundingthe Porgera Gold Mine, which I will discusslater (Filer ed.: 2001). Given these constraints.is this type of consultancy work as Brutti (200 I :95) wonders, "scientific prostitution"?

Jorgensen says that for the consultantwho wishes to get around these non-disclosun:agreements. and make social disruptions andcompany transgressions known, there are atleast four possible avenues. The first. and. ifsuccessful, the best manner to straddle thisdivide is to negotiate into one's contract aclause that allows the researcher to publish theirfindings in academic journals as well. Whilethis is laudable, the contractor can be confident

in knowing that, even in academic journals, mostwork will not reach the eyes of persons in aposition to work against them. This is the rarestof the situations and the question of reading theacademic work of a researcher who one knowshas been commissioned by a mining companyleads, in my mind to decreasing her or hisauthOlity and legitimacy.

The second method is to get thecontractor to include a clause in the contract thatsays the author may publish in academic journals,but only if the contractor is first allowed to look atthe work. However, the might and lawyerpurchasing ability of the corporations whocontract this work, and the ability of states tomake future academic research difficult if notimpossible means that any contract anthropologistis still extraordinarily constrained in this situation(see also Greider: 1993).

The third method is more specifically inrelation to_ anthropologists who have beencontracted in the beginning stages of a largeproject like the Papua New Guinea minesmentioned previously. This clause oftenstipulates that the contract anthropologist maypublish her or his findings anywhere they please,but only after a delay of up to one year.Generally, according to Jorgensen. by the timethat any publication of the negative effects of theproject could be made known, the productionprocess is already well under way and agreementsand contracts with local peoples and governmenthave already been pushed through. Again, anypossible good that could have come from thereport would have been lost due to the exigenciesof the clauses in the contract. Those in favour ofanthropological consultants argue the imp0l1anceof creating some record of the transgressions anddownfalls of the contracting company. and thusthe anthropologist can have some measure ofcomfol1 knowing that she or he has done at leastthat. Is this a worthwhile enough cause? Is thisconscience clearing exercise in the hopes that afuture law suit (as many of the subjects of thesestudies are prone to file) will hopefully haveaccess to this report enough'?

I have been. perhaps wrongfully,intimating that the people about whom thesesocial impact studies are written are totallyagainst the development projects which hire theseconsultant anthropologists. This is untrue. Byand large. the people in this Papua New Guineancontcxt who are involved with these projects arethe most disenfranchised in the country. It wouldbe paternalistic and na"ive to think that thesepeople are unaware of the more technologically

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advanced world around them and a sillyessentialist argument to say that these'traditional' people would prefer to live in whatis perceived to be a static and unchangingworld. Papua New Guineans do not live in avacuum, globalization. as mentioned in theintroduction is a process that has always been inaction. Papua New Guineans recognize thebenefits. socially and economically that couldcome about as a result of having access to thecompensation and jobs provided by thesemining initiatives. However, as Jorgensen( 1997) notes, these issues are extremelycomplex and not easily solved even by a severalmonth stint from a consulting anthropologist.The fourth method that Jorgensen presents(2002) as a way of circumventing these non-disclosure agreements is to lobby to include aclause in the consulting anthropologist'scontract that stipulates that the people aboutwhom the study is written receive access to saidstudy. Brutti notes that often reports areconfidential, and asks "Why should the socialactors of the survey not know the results of thestudy in which they stand as main characters?"(2001: 95). The idea behind this act ofresistance is that the people about whom thisstudy is written may then lobby more stronglyfor a stronger bargaining position or to stop theprocess of the development as a result of thisstudy. This too seems a viable solution on thesurface. Yet, if one is a researcher with enoughinvested in an area to write against the actionsof a large scale development project such as amine, would it not be better to advocate andwork directly with the people involyed ratherthan lend one's own name and thus claims tolegitimacy and explicit ownership of their workto the very people one is criticizing?

Implicit in these attempts to avoid anon-disclosure agreement is the issue ofownership. With or without any of theseclauses in a consultant anthropologist's contractthere are still considerable obstacles for theanthropologist with a conscience who wants heror his findings to be made easily and broadlypublic without fear of pressure from thecontracting body. Jorgensen suggests thatanthropologists who have worked first as anacademic researcher who then are hired to workas a consultant may try to publish theircriticisms and findings based on the idea thattheir work comes out of their past research andis therefore not owned by the contractingcompany. Or, if the anthropologist wants thatdesperately to write academically the results of

their contract work, she or he could simply returnto the area of contract work, ask all of the samequestions again, and now have their ownownership of the findings. Finally, if theanthropologist does want desperately to voice hisor her concerns, she or he could simply publishdespite the terms of their agreement, on thereasoning that any publication would be in areasnot widely read by the public and any legal actiontaken on behalf of the contracting company wouldopen them to too much media scrutiny and wouldnot be pursued. Are these actions enough for aclear conscience? I am unsure. It seems that if theonly way to work as an applied anthropologist forone of these companies or development projectsis to have to circumvent the law, to get the moneyand then to voice one's concerns, that one is toocomplicit to claim any authority about the matter.

The immediate response to this line orargument would be something on the lines of'well, at least it is doing something right'?Indeed, Brutti (200 I) argues that none-involvement, "flailing against big bad windmills"is useless and that a Trojan horse method wouldbe more effective for an anthropologist who reallywants to seek some kind of positive impact:

Such a kind of approach [aconsultant hired by thedevelopment firm writing areport] may be more helpfulthan an international court case,because once anthropologistsare inside the mechanism theyare perceived as interlocutorsrather than adversaries and asinterlocutors, they have muchmore negotiating power withinthe company (Brutti: 200 1,96).

I find it difficult to fall in line with this type ofargument. The hired anthropologist may be aninterlocutor in one sense, but they are alsocontractually bound. Because anthropologistsgenerally feel some affiliation towards the peoplewith whom they have completed their research, isthis not some form of, at least perceptualtransgression, to then work for the constituency(the mining company) who is trying to negotiatethe most favourable deal for themselves andpossibly against these persons as possible. Thisline of argument opens further questions.Consider the situation of the anthropologist whomight be against a development project forreasons of social upheaval, environmental

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damage, or long term effects to the populationand area. Consider also that the 'local' people,that is those she or he is commissioned tostudy, may want this development. This begsthe question of whether non-involvement onthese grounds is akin to some form ofpaternalism and whether it is in fact a betrayalof the persons whom have given you the greatgift of access to their culture. I will return tothat idea of obligation later, but for now itseems prudent to explore the question ofpaternalism.

Mining initiatives are big business: thePorgera mine in Papua New Guinea representedan initial investment of nearly three qum1ers ofa billion dollars (Filer, ed.: 2001). Thisrepresents an enormous boom in infrastructureand income for the entire country. A companywith that much capital for investment will noteasily be dissuaded. Arguably, regm'dless of theintervention of any number of anthropologistsoutlining the potential long and short termhazards, such a venture would go forth, In thatcase, would choosing the path of non-intervention, but knowing that the mine wouldgo forth regardless be construed as apaternalistic act? What political statementwould be made? Is non-involvement to beperceived as some throw-back to the origins ofthe discipline? Would the message be that theanthropologist would rather artificially wish forthese particular Papua New Guineans to befrozen in time, bounded and isolated from thenefarious baddies of the outside world? AudreLorde says "Your silence will not protect you".Nor will it protect, by extension, those withwhich you have had some contact and researchrelationships. To my mind, non-intervention inthis situation is not silence, it is a political act.It is choosing non-complicity with a system ofcapital movement and investment that has beenshown time and time again, regardless of thenumber of 'rapid ethnographic and socialimpact assessments' to be disastrous. Framedin this manner, with regard to the larger socialand structural, political and economicmachinations, non-involvement may in fact bethe strongest position from the anthropologistcan take. There is, in Bourdieu's terminology a"myth of non-political academic discourse andobjectivity" (1990). In truth, everything that ananthropologist or academic wlites or does notwrite is both subjective and highly political.

Debates of this kind always spawnquestions of "Yeah, but what if.. .", What if youfelt that there was a possibility that the social

impact or assessment report would be beneficial?What if all of your recommendations as aconsulting anthropologist were taken to heart andput into action and not used as a way of fulfillingthe minimum in terms of the law of the land andidentifying for the contracting body possibleloopholes in future lawsuits? The truth of thematter is that these situations do not exist, or atleast not as frequently as could be construedsignificant, and as long as the interests of thecompany lie in accruing maximum financial gain,the work of the anthropologist will always becompromised.

Having dealt with the question ofpaternalism, I must return then to the issues atstake with regards to obligation. In the casestudies I have been examining, all of theanthropologists who worked either for the state, amining outfit, or a NGO had previously donefieldwork in the area. If, as I maintain,anthropology starts with an enormous gift, thisalso means, on some level, it incurs an enormousdebt. Martha Macintyre was hired by a miningcompany in Papua New Guinea to do a socialimpact assessment about a group of people withwhom she had previously done fieldwork. Shewrites: "I felt that by putting my knowledge tosome useful end, I could in some way 'pay a debt'to the people of Milne Bay who had provided mewith hospitality and shared their knowledge andunderstandings with me as I did fieldwork overthe previous eight years" (Macintyre: 2001, 109).Anthropologists must, on some level feel a senseof 'reactive obligation' to the people with whomthey have shared their fieldwork experience. Thisfeeling of obligation and emotional investmentmight be grounds for many to decide that if aconsultancy position is offered they should acceptit out of some form of duty to that community.Recall that my concern is with the anthropologistwho works on behalf of the mining company,state or other larger more dominant group.Should, for example, the residents of Milne Bayhave approached Martha Macintyre, I think thatthe reasoning and ethics would be entirelydifferent. Paid or unpaid, to act as an advocate orresearcher at the behest of the group who is to bestudied brings with it far different powerdynamics. Though the problems of the type ofliterature produced would be similar (grey asopposed to academic), I believe that the shift inpositionality of working for the persons who areto be affected by these large 'development'projects mitigates those concerns. Presumably, ina situation wherein the anthropologist is working

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for a 'local' group the constraints of non-disclosure would certainly not apply.

Yet for all of this ethical pondeling andtable banging, I have still only addressed theconcerns of the anthropologist as an individual,and the constraints on a personal professionalacademic career. I have not mentioned thepossible effects the work of the consultantanthropologist on the discipline as a whole.These are, to my mind, many. Recall also thatwith regards to this paper, I am addressinganthropologists who straddle the divide betweenacademic and consultant researcher. Whetheror not these ground rules change if theanthropologist claims to be working outside ofthe academic spectrum is beyond the scope ofthis paper. Though it may be significant tonote, that for academics. it is their obligation,ethically, to publish that which they find. Itseems important to reiterate that contractualrestraints if not deny this responsibility, thenthey at least limit the possibility of fulfilling thisduty. Perhaps the title, the ascription ofanthropologist, of doctor of anything to do withthe social sciences carries with it some sort ofauthority and legitimacy that, if misused, couldcompromise the discipline. I have beenquestioned on this stance. Many would arguethat I put too much emphasis on the power ofthe academic. But recall again the specificcircumstances about which I am speaking. Theconsultant anthropologists in these situations areworking in an area in which post-secondary(indeed in some cases, even secondary)education is not easily attainable. Just as highcost commodities such as vehicle and foreignfood are valued higher than local goods, so toois advanced education given a higher value,authority and legitimacy than local indigenousknowledge. The foreigner (i.e. the consultantanthropologist), is representative of both thehighly desirable foreign goods as well as aforeign (and therefore somehow better)education. The power dialectic that is forged asa result must be taken into account.

That being said I think it is imperativeto include in this argument some discussion onthe ways in which the consultant or appliedanthropologist's work may affect the rest of thediscipline. Strathern and Stewart argue:

The political position of the[consultant] research workercan be characterized by thefollowing elements: [I] Theresearch worker is interstitial

between power groups. [2] thepeople may thereforeoverestimate the researchworker's ability to mediatebetween these groups. [3] Theresearch worker is perceived assomeone whose loyalty toanother interest group must bewon over. [4] The researchworker must then demonstratethis loyalty; but from theresearcher's own viewpoint it ismost important to be able topreserve a degree of neutralityin order to remain impm1ial(2001: 12).

There are many issues at work here. First,though secondary to the point to which I amtrying to put forth is the difficulty that theconsultant researcher has in attempting to presentsome form of objectivity while workingostensibly from a discipline which has in the pastseveral decades made a point to argue that theirwork is neither objective nor impal1ial butrecognition of this subjectivity can only add tothe quality of the work. Second, and moreimportant to the current issue, is the way inwhich the consulting anthropologist's position ischanged in relation to that of the studiedpopulation. The researcher is no longer someonewho is there because she or he has an interest inthe way that the 'local' population works. Theyare now using the research gained previously togain recompense from a company that mayormay not have the groups best interest in mind andwho is someone whose work can at leastperceptually, be manipulated by the company fora better negotiating position. It is my opinionthat if something is perceived to be true, then it istrue in its practice. To be sure, this position isnot new by any stretch of the imagination. Manyethnographic accounts give detail of how thereseal'cher is welcomed and then used as a tool togain either bureaucratic or monetary assistance.The situation when the anthropologist is inactuality or perceived to be representative ofanother interest (e.g. in these cases, the miningcompany) however, changes the situation. Brutti(200 I) writes of his experience and others thatthere is a tendency to "assimilate the researcherto the company directing the survey". This putsthe researcher in a precarious position. Scaglionwrites explicitly about this in his work (200 I).Scaglion was employed by the government ofNew Guinea to oversee some changes in

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traditional law and ownership claims. Work ofthis nature could be very useful for mining andother resource development countries that needto negotiate compensation payments with localgroups. He writes in detail about his firstfieldwork experience as one in which heam ved dusty and without resources to be takenin as a son amongst his informants. Returningsome years later as an academic anthropologistworking for the government he writes, "I feltacutely that I was part of that bureaucracy. Mygovernment duties had conflicted with myresponsibilities as a member of the localconmmnity" (Scaglion: 200 I, 52). No longerthe "incompetent son" he was now in manyways a person who must be defened andappealed to in a manner that he said "oftenmade me feel like a hypocrite" (ibid. 49). Hefurther notes that his position as an employeeof the Public Services commission forced himto formulate questions and resolutions in a waythat as an anthropologist he knew wereincompatible for the group with which he haddone his fieldwork. Thus, in trying to fulfill hisreactive obligation and provide assistance,Scaglion had conunitted a kind of culturaltreason. Two things mise out of Scaglion' saccount. The first is the difficulty that Scaglionhad reconciling himself to his new position.Secondly, and more to do with the effect on thediscipline as a whole, with the increase ofanthropological consultants in Papua NewGuinea, and their accompanying reception aspersons of authority and synonymy withdevelopment and mining companies, how willfuture generations of anthropologists be able toconduct their academic research? I am not. tobe sure, suggesting any form of simplicity onthe part of the local populations. I am simplynoting that the perception of the role of theanthropologist as someone who does researchfor the sake of research will be compromised.This is a tenuous point to be sure, but one that Ifeel must be mentioned. Beyond even thesefiner points, Greider argues that there is anothcrway that the applied anthropologist does notfulfill their own reactive obligation to her or hisown discipline: "Applied anthropologists oftcnhave a wealth of research findings that neverbecome part of the academic literature, if thefindings are repOlted. they may be masked tosuch an extent that their contribution to socialscience is limited" (Greider: 1993,432).Barring even the ways around non-disclosureagreements proposed by Jorgensen earlier. thisargument would seem to propose a stronger

possible position of criticism and advocacy byvirtue of having greater backing of otheracademics.

I have not yet brought up the issue ofanthropologists who work as consultants or evenemployees for NGOs in relation to the effect ofthe work on the discipline as whole. It is perhapsin this arena that the issue of damage to thediscipline as a result of a prevalence of appliedanthropologists must be considered. To be clear,I do not believe that the same dangers are inherentin this situation as in those wherein theanthropologist works for the developmentinitiative (mining company) directly. However, Iwould feel remiss if I were to ignore some of thepotential hazards endemic in working for NGOs.Paige West worked independently as an academicresearcher within a wildlife management projectin Papua New Guinea and argues:

the people of ... the project areaare characterized by NGOs asboth ignorant of and threateningto their environment. By usinganthropologically basedterminology to discussindigenous or local peoples,NGOs give the allusion ofattention being paid to localsocial practices and socialrelations (West: 200 I, 68-9).

She says that rampant misrepresentation can bethe result of this co-optation. Obviouslyanthropologists do not have the copyright on theirlanguage. But the addition of anthropologists into the arena of NGOs, who can fall prey to thesame development traps as either the state orcorporation, has dangerous feel of complicitysimilar to that of working for a company.Wagner (2001: 88-9) sees trouble when NGOsuse the presence of anthropologists as a claim tolegitimacy for their own projects. He tells ofbeing given office space within an NGO in PapuaNew Guinea for his own research purposes, onlyto find out that his presence was being publicizedas an political strategy for the NGO to use hisacademic credibility to gain access to morefunds. I find the 'ends justi fy the means'counter-argument to this allegation of complicityunhelpful especially when the anthropologist'sname (and if frequent enough the discipline'sname) is subjected to a loss of credibility in theprocess. West wonies that the co-optation ofanthropological terminology for the production

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and reproduction of local peoples may bemisconstrued as the new twenty first centuryanthropology. These misrepresentations maylead to essentialisms that do only disservice tothe indigenous knowledge and claims thatcirculate and thus reflect both on the disciplineand the 'good intentions' appliedanthropologist who lends their name andcredibility to an NGO.

These sins of good intent. are it seemslesser than the sins of those who feel itnecessary to lend their name and legitimacy tocompanies on the reasoning that someintervention is better than none. Macintyrehighlights an extremely salient point in thefollowing.

The expectation that the mostdisruptive conflict will bebetween the mining companyand the conununity informsmost terms ofreference .... conflict with thecompany can be dramatic anddisruptive, but conflict withinthe conununity is cOHosiveand the source of many of thesocial problems that emergeand become entrenched(2001:113).

Thus it seems that a false binary is set up whenan anthropologist works as an interlocutor fromwithin a company. Scaglion's experience aswell as Strathern and Stewart's assertion thatthe contract can bind the scope of the analysisis impOttant to remember. The academicresearcher, or even the contract researcher whois working on behalf of the local indigenousgroup, is able to formulate their analysis inways that may exceed the scope of the directrelationship between company and the local.Many of the authors examined who were infavor of the work of the applied anthropologistspoke in terms of being able to identify longand shOtt term hazards. Yet, they areidentified, mostly for the contractor. If theanthropologist is not constrained, and has theability to report her or his findings to thepopulation under study, does not thispopulation have a greater base from which toprovide resistance to the encroachment ofdevelopment projects; or if halting the projectis not the concern, at least negotiate from astronger position?

Every decision that we make, both asacademics and as people who are present in theworld is political. The degree to which we feelwe can work towards mitigation of perceived orpotential wrong doings is affected by the arena inwhich we choose to act. History has shown thatthe ethical responsibilities of even the academicanthropologist are heavy. The burdenrepresenting, if even only one's own experienceof another culture is heavy, and misinterpretationscan lead to dire consequences. Yet, thereflexivity and subjectivity of the discipline makeits own demands in terms of where authority canmost cogently be drawn.

I am not alone in my ethical tablepounding. Kirsch, an anthropologist who beganwork as a consultant for the Ok Tedi miningproject in Papua New Guinea and then moved towork as an advocate in conjunction with a NGObecause he felt his work was beingmisrepresented argues, "activism is a logicalextension of the conurutment to reciprocity thatunderlies the practice of anthropology". Perhapsit is the anthropologist who publishes where andwhen she or he wants, and works outside of thediscipline, untethered by the constraints of theconsultant's contract who can most stand up forboth their own personal beliefs as well as upholdthe standards of the academy. Hyndman writes:"The role of the anthropologist and activist havebeen effectively combined to analyze the socialcosts of the environmental problems and suggestremedies for the mining crisis" (Hyndman 2001:46).

The role of the anthropologist indevelopment is tricky at best. The anthropologistwho chooses to work for a major resourceextraction company is compromised on severaldifferent levels. These include: ownership,censorship, co-optation of work and legitimacy,as well as transgressions both to the informants aswell as the discipline from which the trainedanthropologist garners their authority andacademic freedom. Escobar (1991: 677) writes:"Development anthropology, for all its claim torelevance to local problems, to culturalsensitivity, and to access to interpretive holisticmethods, has done no more than recycle, anddress in more localized fabrics, the discourses ofmodernization and development". Whether theseverity of this situation bears truth, the sentimentneeds to be recognized. The anthropologist hasonly her or his name and thus the choices that sheor he makes in terms of for whom they will workhave long term ramifications. It is my contentionthat writing from within the academy is the

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strongest possible posItIOn from which anyattempts to fulfill a reciprocal obligation to thepeople who first gave the anthropologist theenormous gift of access into their culture.

Brutti, Lorenzo. 200 I. Where Anthropologistsfear to Tread. Notes and queries onAnthropology and Consultancy,inspired by a fieldwork experience inA Strathern and P. Stewart (eds),Social Analysis: Journal of Culturaland Social Practice, 45: 94-107.

Bryant, B. and S. Bailey. 1997. Third WorldPolitical Ecology. London: Routledge.

Escobar, Arturo. 1991. Making ofDevelopment Anthropology. AmelicanEthnologist 18( 16-40).

Filer, C. 1999. Dialectics of Negation andNegotiation in the Anthropology ofMineral Resource Development inPapua New Guinea. In TheAnthropology of Power:Empowerment andDisempowerment in ChangingStructures. AP. Cheater, Ed. Pp. 88-102.

Greider, T. 1993. Ethical Dilemmas andPublishing Constraints of Client-Based Applied Practitioners. HumanOrganization 52: 432-433.

Ingersoll, Jasper. 1972. Anthropologists andthe Agency for InternationalDevelopment (ALD.): an old haterelationship and a new love affair.Anthropological QUal1erly 50:199-204.

Jorgensen, D. 1997. Who and What is aLandowner? Mythology and theMal'king of Land in a Papua NewGuinean Mining Project" inBrown, P., and Ploeg, A, (eds)Special Issue Anthropological Forum.7.

2002. November (Personal Discussionsre: PNG and ethics).

Macintyre, M. 200 I. Taking Care of Culture:Consultancy, Anthropology andGender Issues" in A. Strathern and P.Stewal1 (eds), Social Analysis:Journal of Cultural and SocialPractice, 45: 108-119.

Rohatynskyj. M. 2001. On Knowing theBaining and other Mino EthnicGroups of East New Britain" in AStrathern and P. Stewart (eds), SocialAnalysis: Journal of Cultural andSocial Practice, 45: 23-40.

Scaglion, R. 2001. From Anthropologist toGovernment Officer and Back Again"in A Strathern and P. Stewart (eds),Social Analysis: Journal of Culturaland Social Practice, 45: 41-54.

Strathern, A. and P. Stewart 2001.Anthropology and Consultancy:Ethnographic Dilemmas andOpportunities" in A. Strathern and P.Stewart (eds). Social Analysis:Journal of Cultural and SocialPractice, 45: 3-21.

Tambiah. SJ. 2002. Edmund Leach: Ananthropological life. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Wagner, J. 2001. The Politics ofAccountability: an institutional analysisof the conservation movement in PapuaNew Guinea. Social Analysis: Journalof Cultural and Social Practice, 45: 78-93.

West, P. 2002. Environmental NonGovernmental Organizations and theNature of Ethnographic Inquiry.Social Analysis: Journal of Culturaland Social Practice, 45: 55-77.

Wilkins, P. 1982. Regaining the GoldenStool: Anthropology and AppliedResearch" in Seidenberg et al. (eds)JASO: Journal of the AnthropologicalSociety of Oxford. 13: 112-121.

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