Censorship within the AAA (January 2005)

Two individuals who apparently consider themselves to be reputable scientists and academics again try to censor discussion on matters central to the long established concern for professional ethics in the AAA. The procedure pursued by Thomas Gregor and Daniel Gross in submitting a referendum for the March ballot is obviously designed to circumvent any discussion of their serious unevaluated charges. As background they refer to their accusatory article (December AA), but fail to mention other recent pertinent material such as the book edited by Robert Borofsky---Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn From It. That book provides by far the most thorough, balanced, and fair coverage of the controversy with authors from all sides. The article by Gregor and Gross is flawed by some of the same misinformation and disinformation that they widely promulgated previously. Again they attempt to censor information, discussion, and debate about the allegations made by Patrick Tierney regarding numerous and diverse violations of professional ethics by Napoleon Chagnon and associates over decades. Again they attempt to silence Yanomami voices as recorded in transcripts of interviews in the Final Report of the Task Force on Darkness in El Dorado. Regardless of the veracity of any statements by Yanomami surely they should enjoy freedom of speech, a basic human right in UN conventions and the constitutions of Brazil, Venezuela, and the USA. It is the height of hypocrisy for anthropologists Gregor and Gross, who made their careers based to a considerable degree on interviews with Native Amazonians, to try to censor opinions of the latter which do not meet with their approval. Apparently, freedom of speech applies to Gregor and Gross, but not to anyone who differs with them in this scandal. To be fair to the AAA membership and Task Force, not to mention the Yanomami who have suffered from some irresponsible anthropologists, the AAA should postpone the vote on the referendum, prominently post it on the web site and in the AN, invite commentary from the membership, and then call for a vote by special ballot next fall or at the annual business meeting. That procedure is a matter of the professional ethics of the AAA administration and its responsibility to the entire membership. This censorship and railroading by Gregor and Gross is compromising the core values of the AAA, profession, science, and academia.

Leslie Sponsel

*[The text of this Referendum can be found on any of these web sites:

American Anthropological Association http://www.aaanet.org

Douglas Hume http://members.aol.com/archaeodog/index.htm

Public Anthropology htttp://www.publicanthropology.org.

The first and last web sites include comments pro and con on the Referendum]