RESPONSE TO THE VOTE ON THE 2005 GREGOR-GROSS REFERENDUM TO RESCIND THE FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON DARKNESS IN EL DORADO
RESULTS
On June 23, 2005, the AAA office sent an email to the membership announcing the votes on three referenda:
#1 Un-censuring Franz Boas
1,245 yes
73 no
#2 Policy on selecting the annual meeting location
695 yes
624 no
#3 To rescind the AAA's acceptance of the Report of the El Dorado Task Force
846 yes
338 no
[See the AAA web site for the details of these referenda and the September issue of the AAA Anthropology News for discussion].
REACTION
1. In the El Dorado referendum, 71% voted in favor out of the total 1,184 who voted. However, the total who voted on this third referendum is 134 less than those who voted for #1 and 135 less than those who voted for #2, suggesting that the third referendum was of less interest than the other two.
2. Furthermore, the vote for the third referendum comprises only about 11.1% to10.5 % of the 10,683 to 11,300 individual members of the AAA. In other words, the silent majority remained silent in this vote, about 90% of the membership. [According to Richard Thomas, Manager of AAA Membership Services, the total membership at the end of May 2005 was 10,683, but throughout the year the total fluctuates up to 11,300 (personal communication by email, June 24, 2005)].
3. One conclusion is that the controversy over Darkness in El Dorado just doesn't interest most anthropologists one way or the other. If so, this is a very sad commentary on the condition of contemporary anthropology and concern with professional ethics in particular.
4. In any case, while Napoleon Chagnon and his accomplices may enjoy victory in this instance, it seems like a very modest one at best. One battle has been won in a protracted war, but Napoleon's waterloo may yet be ahead. As a scientist and scholar, I can only have faith that truth will eventually win. Several books and a documentary film under production may further reveal the truth.
5. Apparently information, awareness, and sensitivity about professional ethics still has a long way to evolve in anthropology. Discussions in textbooks and other venues of the Yanomami, the controversy, and professional ethics in the years ahead will be one indicator of just how far anthropology still has to develop before it gets serious about professional ethics if it ever does. The apathy over the controversy by the silent majority affirms that.
6. If the AAA were going to pursue truth and justice, then it would establish another Task Force to try to do a better job. In any case, as the authors of the referendum, Thomas Gregor and Daniel Gross, state, the referendum makes no judgement about the guilt or innocence of Napoleon Chagnon, only about a supposedly faulty procedure in the process of inquiry by the Task Force.
7. As Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (2002:20) observed: "The development of an ethically conscious culture that promotes discussion of ethically responsible decision-making still eludes us as a profession." Perhaps the profession will require another century to become ethically mature. However, in the case of this referendum, at least the AAA and Public Anthropology web sites opened space for civil and constructive discussion, and hopefully that record will be archived for future students of the history and ethics of anthropology. Some of the comments demonstrate objective and logical reasoning against the referendum. In any case, this controversy remains the ugliest scandal in the entire history of anthropology (see Borofsky 2005).
References Cited
American Anthropological Association http://www.aaanet.org
Borofsky, Robert, 2005, Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy And What We Can Learn From It, Berkely, CA: University of California Press.
Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, March 2002, "A Century of Ethics and Professional Anthropology," AAA Anthropology News 43(3):20.
Public Anthropology (Robert Borofsky) http://www.publicanthropology.org