Issues in the Ethics of Research Method: An Interpretation of the Anglo-American Perspective and Comments and Reply

There is a pattern of elements within the Anglo-American structure of thinking and reasoning which affects methods of data collection, data analysis, and systems of information dispersion with respect to studies of non-Western cultures. An argument is built in this paper which maintains that: (1) These same elements hinder some Anglo-American anthropologists from studying their own cultures. They form a pattern which begins with the selection of anthropology as a profession, the selection of a target culture, the selection of behavioral phenomena, actions, events, and occurrences for observation in the target culture, the selection of informants, and the choice of language-words and concepts-for recording, description, classification, and generalization. (2) The pattern is witnessed in some verbal descriptions and in descriptive and inferential statistics in reference to non-Western cultures and also in some book titles, course titles, textbook illustrations, cover designs, and photographs. It is witnessed in slides. movies, films, public lectures, and college lectures. (3) Resultant from these elements are characteristic psychological consequences observed among students and scholars in anthropology and the masses who are exposed to this Anglo-American anthropological epistemology. (4) In pursuit of a world epistemology, the author calls for worldwide respected scientific research methods, on-going cross-disciplinary researches around the world, and new methods in the dispersion of anthropological information.