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Although specifically articulated ethics codes for research are a relatively new phenomenon, they have a common reference to the more ancient principles of ‘respect’, ‘beneficence’ and ‘justice’ (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research 1979, CIOMS 2002). In this article we compare research ethics codes and guidelines specifi-cally between the fields of biomedicine and anthropology. It has become increasingly common for various disciplines to engage in joint projects within or outside academia, and there is therefore a pressing need for comparison between ethics codes. As researchers based in an institution encom-passing both biomedicine and anthropology, part of the authors’ daily work involves negotiating between dif-ferent disciplinary discourses. We believe that it would be fruitful to engage in a dialogue with researchers from other backgrounds to compare views of what we think is right in research, and to seek inspiration.

The historical trajectories of the various disciplinary codes are rather different given the unique intersections between external political and economic forces to which they have been exposed and the internal concerns and tra-ditions of the practitioners in the individual disciplines or sub-disciplines.

Concern about biomedical research ethics emerged 60 years ago at the Nuremberg trials, where Nazi doc-tors were found guilty of ‘crimes against humanity’. Subsequently, the Nuremberg Code has formed the basis for international biomedical research ethics codes, ini-

tially aiming to ‘avoid harm’, later encompassing other ethical issues. The Helsinki Declaration adopted by the World Medical Association (WMA) in June 1964 marks the determination of the medical profession to build on the Nuremberg Code and, via a number of revisions (most recently in 2004), develop guidance for medical research. Major scandals over the years have given rise to the reali-zation that, if medicine is to be trusted, it must develop more specific codes of ethics. A particularly strong incen-tive for developing ethics codes was provided by the infa-mous Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932-72), in which Black subjects were denied access to treatment programmes that used penicillin successfully from its invention in 1947. The discovery and subsequent termination of the study in 1972, along with other instances of secretive experimenta-tion such as the CIA’s MK-Ultra project, eventually led to the Belmont report (1979), which resulted in the estab-lishment of the National Human Investigation Board and Institutional Review Boards. Since then, and in response to scandals in other countries, the number of guidelines and codes has multiplied rapidly.

Research ethics codes in anthropology developed along different pathways from biomedicine. Fluehr-Lobban describes how ‘crisis events’ have from time to time trig-gered debates about the involvement of anthropologists in contested projects (2003a). In the USA these crises clustered around landmark cases such as Boas’ 1919 pro-test against four archaeologists who allegedly combined intelligence-gathering and research during World War I,

We are grateful to Professor Göran Sterky and Professor Povl Riis, who served as sources of inspiration, and to Professor Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban and Dr George Ulrich, as well as anonymous AT reviewers who have given valuable input.

Jens Aagaard-Hansen is trained both as a medical doctor and as an anthropologist. He has been engaged in research capacity building in developing countries for the past 15 years. His email is jah@life.ku.dk.Maria Vang Johansen is a veterinarian with a PhD in parasitology. She has been involved in research capacity building and research ethics in developing countries for nearly 20 years. Her email is mvj@life.ku.dk.

Fig. 1. Biomedical field research usually involves clinical examination. Mozambique, September 2007.

Research ethics across disciplinesJens Aagaard-Hansen & Maria Vang Johansen

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the Camelot Affair in the 1960s, where it was proposed that social scientists be used for military purposes in Latin America (which led to the AAA’s Statement on Problems of Anthropological Research and Ethics in 1967), and con-cerns about military strategists seeking to involve anthro-pologists in the Vietnam War (Fluehr-Lobban 2003a).

More recent examples in related fields are (intellectual) property rights contested between researchers and the study population in the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP), and the negotiation between science and ‘cultural heritage’, where archaeology comes into conflict with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Fluehr-Lobban 2003a, 2003c, Marks 2005). Today, use of anthropology in the ‘war on terror’ has once again revived concerns that security agencies are aiming to use data col-lected by anthropologists for intervention in third coun-tries, particularly in Iraq. It is of course also difficult to shake off the history of use of anthropology in the colonies of North European countries (see Pels 1999, Caplan 2003, Fluehr-Lobban 2003a and Mills 2003). These examples serve to indicate how questions of ethics are necessarily embedded in specific national contexts.

Research ethics codes inevitably reflect the basic values and methodological best practices within the different dis-ciplines or sub-disciplines. For example, anthropologists normally take on and conduct research on an individual basis, whilst biomedical research is normally conducted in teams, involving major laboratory facilities and equip-ment. Biomedical research is linked to a larger pharmaceu-tical complex, involving experiments on subjects of major commercial interest, whereas anthropologists chiefly col-lect data by means of participant-observation, which need not have any commercial dimension or interventional impact on host populations. Anthropologists do not nor-mally administer medicine or perform invasive surgery, and so subjects are unlikely to face the kind of risks to life and limb that are inherent in biomedicine. Notwithstanding these different historical trajectories, changing external political and economic forces, and specific internal values and traditions, here we set out to explore whether some common points of reference may be identified.

Codes of research ethicsFrom the many research ethical codes we picked the five that are perhaps best known in the fields of biomedicine and anthropology – three emerging from within national traditions (one British and two US codes) plus two inter-national codes. These five stand as key reference points globally wherever these disciplines are practised. This selection is biased towards ‘Western’, Anglophone, high-income countries and is but a preliminary sketch that awaits a more comprehensive review.

1. The first version of the World Medical Association’s (WMA) Helsinki Declaration is currently the most widely known research ethics code internationally. It has had a strong impact on biomedical scientists’ concepts of and respect for research ethics.

2. With regard to US codes, the US National Bioethics Advisory Commission’s (NBAC) ‘Ethical and Policy Issues in International Research: Clinical Trials in Developing Countries in 2002’ is of particular interest. The NBAC was instituted in 1995 as a high-level national advisory board focused on the protection of the rights and welfare of human research subjects with particular regard to the implications of management and use of genetic information.

3. The Council for International Organisations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) has published a revised ver-sion of its International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects (2002), which also deals extensively with research in developing countries.

The CIOMS is an international, non-governmental organi-zation, founded by UNESCO and the WHO in 1949, that provides a global perspective.

4. The Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) has been revised several times – the latest being compiled in 1998. A number of additional documents are available at the AAA website (AAA 2006) as part of an ongoing discussion on ethical issues within the association. These seek to address the limitations and rigidity of a code by introducing a number of illustrative case studies and briefing papers.

5. The ‘Ethical Guidelines for Good Research Practice’ (1999) of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth (ASA), besides addressing the three key themes (informed consent, harm and benefits to the study population), also deals with ethical aspects of intellectual property rights. The ASA sees its role specifi-cally as to debate and guide but not to judge on research ethics issues.

There are some useful documents that are not codes in their own right, but nevertheless provide valuable discus-sions and perspectives on some key issues. Among these are the reports of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002, 2004), which focus on the imbalance between developing and developed countries’ economic resources and health infrastructures in relation to research ethics.

Comparisons and reflectionsWhilst recognizing the different contexts in the way these ethics codes were formulated, we focus here specifically on the way they deal with key ideas such as ‘consent’, ‘avoiding harm’ and ‘providing benefits to the study popula-tion’. Furthermore, we reflect on the potential implications of any differences as an inspiration for change. Before we do this, however, we should note two useful sources com-paring ethics codes, namely the second Nuffield report, which relates purely to biomedicine and focuses chiefly on ‘informed consent’ and ‘benefit’ (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2004), and Fluehr-Lobban’s brief comparison of codes from various social science disciplines (2003a).

Informed consentThe WMA dedicates paragraphs 20-26 of the Helsinki Declaration to the various aspects of informed consent (2004). Almost a full page is devoted to elaborating which kinds of information are required as well as the special aspects of ‘dependent relationships’ and research on indi-viduals deemed ‘legally incompetent’ (e.g. minors).

The American NBAC states that ‘no one should par-ticipate in research without giving voluntary informed consent’, and continues: ‘[b]oth the information and the way it is conveyed – while meeting the full disclosure requirements – must be tailored to meet the needs of the participants in the particular research context’ (2002: 4). The NBAC code also deals with protection of vulnerable individuals.

The CIOMS has extensive Guidelines (4-7) for informed consent including directives for how to adapt informa-tion conceptually, culturally and at the level of language (2002). The specifications for informed consent are extremely elaborate (Guideline 5), and include the topic of inducement (Guideline 7). In addition, informed con-sent is addressed in several other sections, e.g. ‘research involving individuals who by reason of mental or behav-ioural disorders are not capable of giving adequately informed consent’ (Guideline 15, CIOMS 2002: 45-47).

More briefly, the AAA code of ethics demands that ‘[a]nthropological researchers should obtain in advance the informed consent of persons being studied’. It adds

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the important observations that ‘[i]t is understood that the informed consent process is dynamic and continuous’ and that ‘it is the quality of the consent, not the format, that is relevant’ (1998: 4). Issues of ‘vulnerable’ and ‘legally incompetent’ study participants are not explicitly dealt with.

The ASA addresses informed consent in some detail, including content and ‘information collected from proxies’ (1999: 3). The issue of ‘legal capacity’ (i.e. whether the individuals are ‘legally competent’) is only briefly addressed.

All codes stress the importance of informed consent. However, the three biomedical codes (especially WMA and CIOMS) go into significantly more detail regarding vulnerable groups such as children and the ‘legally incompetent’. Categories of ‘vulnerable groups’ are not addressed in the two anthropological sets of guidelines, apart from the ASA’s paragraph on legal aspects of vulner-ability. Informed consent is a new phenomenon in anthro-pological codes (appearing for the first time in the AAA codes in 1998; see Fluehr-Lobban 2003b). In anthropology the issue of informed consent is closely related to a contin-uing debate within the discipline on ‘clandestine research’ and research methodology (Fluehr-Lobban 2003c), and is as topical as ever.

In terms of specifications concerning the form in which consent is to be given, there is a tendency for the medical codes to be more elaborate, almost always requiring the signing of written forms. This may be due to the fact that the legal implications of medical research are more sig-nificant. By contrast, the anthropological codes put more emphasis on the quality and the process of gaining consent than on the formalities.

Avoiding harmIn three paragraphs the WMA sets out the need for ‘careful assessment of predictable risks and burdens in comparison with foreseeable benefits to the subject or to others’ and stipulates that ‘[m]edical research involving human sub-jects should only be conducted if the importance of the objective outweighs the inherent risks and burdens to the subject’ (2004: 3, paragraphs 16-18).

The NBAC notes that: ‘[p]articipants should be pro-tected from avoidable harm, whether the research is pub-licly or privately financed’ (2002: 6). A separate section addresses compensation in cases where harm is inflicted.

The CIOMS also deals specifically with the investiga-tor’s obligation to ‘ensure that potential benefits and risks are reasonably balanced and risks are minimized’ (2002: 29-31, Guideline 8). In addition, there is mention of ‘[s]pecial limitations on risk when research involves indi-viduals who are not capable of giving informed consent’ (ibid.: 31-32, Guideline 9). Also addressed is the ‘[r]ight of injured subjects to treatment and compensation’ (ibid.: 51-52, Guideline 19).

The AAA guidelines clearly state that ‘[a]nthropological researchers must do everything in their power to ensure that their research does not harm the safety, dignity, or privacy of the people with whom they work, conduct research, or perform other professional activities’, and that there are equivalent obligations to any animals included in studies (AAA 1998: 4). Elsewhere in the document it is stated that ethical obligations include ‘[t]o avoid harm or wrong, understanding that the development of knowledge can lead to change which may be positive or negative for the people or animals worked with or studied’ (ibid.:3).

The ASA addresses the issue of potential harm in its Ethical Guidelines which relate to ‘anticipating harm’ as well as ‘avoiding undue intrusion’ (Sections 2-3, ASA 1999: 2-3).

In the comparison of the two sets of codes, an interesting difference appears. Whereas the biomedical codes gener-ally focus on the potential harm that may occur through data collection and the related interventions applied, the anthropological equivalents emphasize the harm that may result from the knowledge produced, i.e. events happening after data collection.

In biomedical research, diagnostic procedures (e.g. blood samples or biopsies) or the intervention being tested (e.g. drugs or surgical procedures) may have unintended side-effects. Whilst such interventions are uncommon in anthropology, it could nevertheless be that anthropology is not paying sufficient attention to the potential harm of data collection (e.g. interviews regarding traumatic experiences). Furthermore, some applied anthropological projects may also include interventions which, though planned with the purpose of improving a given situation, may have negative and unforeseen effects.

Conversely, perhaps biomedical researchers should pay attention not only to avoiding harm in relation to the immediate effects of data collection, but also to any poten-tial long-term consequences that might follow from the knowledge produced from it.

Medical research and anthropology share the challenge of ‘confidentiality’. Cases in which a project inadvertently or deliberately allows inappropriate persons access to information can cause major harm to the individual – irre-spective of whether it is the result of a blood test or pri-vate information yielded during an interview. Generally, we find that the medical and anthropological codes are equally concerned with the importance of confidentiality (see e.g. CIOMS Guideline 18, 2002: 49-51 and Akeroyd 1984).

Providing benefits to the study populationThe Helsinki Declaration states that ‘the populations in which the research is carried out [must] stand to benefit’ (WMA 2004: 3, para. 19). Further, ‘the benefits, risks, bur-dens and effectiveness of a new method should be tested against those of the best current prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods’ (para. 29) and ‘at the conclusion of the study, every patient entered into the study should be assured of access to the best proven prophylactic, diag-nostic and therapeutic methods identified by the study’ (WMA 2004: 4, para. 30).

The NBAC does not explicitly encourage provision of benefits to the study population, but does find it essential to ‘ensure that risks are reasonable in relation to potential personal and societal benefits’ (2002: 3).

The CIOMS deals explicitly with this aspect and devotes an entire paragraph to ‘[r]esearch in populations and communities with limited resources’ (Guideline 10). It also recommends ensuring that ‘the research is responsive to the health needs and the priorities of the population or community in which it is to be carried out’ (2002: 32-34). In a broader context it is emphasized that there should be an ‘equitable distribution of burdens and benefits in the selection of groups of subjects in research’ (ibid.: 40-41, Guideline 12). Furthermore, it is stated that external spon-sors are ethically obliged to ensure the availability of ‘health care services that are essential to the safe conduct of the research’, ‘treatment for subjects who suffer injury as a consequence of research interventions’ and the rather vague ‘services that are a necessary part of the commitment of a sponsor to make a beneficial intervention or product developed as a result of the research reasonably available to the population or community concerned’ (ibid.: 53-54, Guideline 21).

The AAA’s guidelines are not particularly explicit when it comes to rendition of services to the community studied. Initially, it is stated that anthropologists are obliged ‘to

Agier, M. 1999. ‘Comment’ on Pels, P. (1999) ‘Professions of duplexity’. Current Anthropology, 40(2): 114-115.

Akeroyd, A.V. 1984. Ethics in relation to informants, the profession and governments. In: Ellen, R.F. (ed.) Ethnographic research: A guide to general conduct, pp.133-154. London: Academic Press.

American Anthropological Association 1998. Code of ethics of the American Anthropological Association. http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethcode.htm

— 2003. Commission to Review the AAA Statements on Ethics: Final report. http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethrpt.htm

Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth 1999. ‘Ethical guidelines for good research practice’. http://www.asa.anthropology.ac.uk/ethics2.html

Barnes, J.A. 1999. ‘Comment’ on Pels, P. (1999) ‘Professions of duplexity’. Current Anthropology, 40(2): 116.

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consult actively with the affected individuals and group(s), with the goal of establishing a working relation that can be beneficial to all parties involved’ (AAA 1998: 3). More specifically, anthropologists ‘should recognize their debt to the societies in which they work and their obligation to reciprocate with people studied in appropriate ways’ (ibid.: 4). Furthermore, ‘anthropological researchers should make the results of their research appropriately available to sponsors, students, decision makers, and other non-anthropologists’ (ibid.:5), and it is further noted that ‘anthropologists may choose to move beyond dissemi-nating research results to a position of advocacy. This is an individual decision, but not an ethical responsibility’ (ibid.: 5-6).

Special recommendations govern the work of ‘applied anthropologists’ who ‘must intend and expect to utilize the results of their work appropriately (i.e. publication, teaching, program and policy development) within a rea-sonable time’ (ibid.: 7). Interestingly, the Final Report of the Commission to Review the AAA Statements on Ethics, declares that ‘there ought to be no expectation that an anthropological researcher must be an advocate for or be expected to “promote the welfare” of a group or culture studied’ (AAA 2003: 9).

The ASA does not address the issue of benefit explic-itly, but makes the following reference: ‘research findings, publications and, where feasible, data should be made available in the country where the research took place’, based on the assumption that available results will imply (useful) change (ASA 1999: 7).

The biomedical discourse deals in a very concrete way with the extent to which (medical) services should be pro-vided to the various sub-categories of the study population. It is a requirement in ethical biomedical research that the diagnosis of a given disease entails the obligation to pro-vide appropriate treatment – either immediately or with a delay depending on the project design and the seriousness of the ailment. If the study design includes control groups, it is standard procedure to provide appropriate treatment after the study.

However, the question of ‘standard of care’ is a key issue (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002). There is an ongoing debate within biomedical research as to whether a health research project is obliged to render the best glo-bally available treatment to the study population (ibid.) or whether it is acceptable to provide services which are ade-quate by local standards only. The issue of providing ben-efits to the study population is given particular emphasis in the Nuffield report, with separate sections on ‘standard of care’ and the issue of ‘what happens once research is over’. Thus, in most biomedical studies treatment is pro-vided at least for the disease(s) under investigation; quite often some kind of care is also given for other medical emergencies.

By contrast, the anthropological codes are less focused on the provision of benefits. Apart from some rather gen-eral formulations concerning reciprocity, only the dissemi-nation of results (ASA 1999) and optional advocacy (AAA 1998) are mentioned. Tangible benefits are not referred to in any way. There may be several reasons. Partly, it may be more ‘natural’ for biomedically trained researchers to provide assistance in accordance with the Hippocratic oath than for anthropologists, who have basically been trained to ‘observe’ rather than ‘improve’. Partly, it may be that provision of benefits risks profoundly influencing the anthropological research, by shifting the image and mindset of the researcher from that of neutral observer to that of development worker.

Feedback of results to the study population (and when relevant to local and national administration) in a suitable form can be seen as a kind of benefit. Irrespective of the

discipline, we contend that researchers should be encour-aged to do this. In the ASA’s Ethical Guidelines the con-cept of benefit to the informants is given an interesting twist through the introduction of a thorough discussion of intellectual property rights.

The theme of benefits reveals the limitations of simply analysing written ethical codes as an index for a discipline’s activities. Within anthropology a number of researchers have taken a strong stand on engaging practical problems and attempting to make a difference (e.g. Berreman 1968, Scheper-Hughes 1995, Farmer 1999).

A source of inspirationInformed consent is a concern for all the five ethical codes in question, though the biomedical address the aspects of ‘vulnerability’ in much more detail. Biomedicine may learn from the two points of the AAA code: that the content matters more than the format (written or oral), and that informed consent is a dynamic and continuous process rather than a one-time dialogue leading to a sig-nature. Akeroyd (1984) has questioned the usefulness of written consent in anthropological research. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics also advocates flexibility of the form in which consent is sought and given, but is categorical when it comes to ‘the view that the fundamental principle of research for persons requires that participants who have the capacity to consent to research should never be sub-jected to research without such consent’ (2002: 77).

A comparison between these codes reveals that the bio-medical focus is principally on the potential harm related to data collection, whereas the anthropological codes are more concerned with negative effects of the knowl-edge produced after the fieldwork itself. Anthropologists would benefit from making any potential negative effects of fieldwork more explicit – in relation to both data col-lection and in some cases ‘interventions’. Conversely, biomedical researchers could usefully pay more atten-tion to potential negative long-term effects of knowledge production.

The anthropological codes are very vague regarding provision of benefits. An anonymous reviewer of one of our previous articles asked: ‘what are they [the anthropol-ogists] going to do, teach a class on ethnography or give a symposium on Weber?’ Our point is that a researcher is not limited to providing benefits within his or her own field. There is nothing preventing an anthropologist from providing a water tank for the village in which the field-work has been conducted. Neither, for that matter, is there any reason why biomedical researchers’ services should be limited to medicine. Furthermore, developing the skills of local staff is always an option. In short, we contend that both biomedicine and anthropology need to ‘think outside the disciplinary box’ and take a broader view of the ben-efits that may be provided.

We realize that the provision of benefits entails a poten-tial conflict between the positions of researcher and devel-opment worker. Furthermore, it would be easy to slide into a situation where data is paid for, which at least in anthro-pological research would likely be problematic. There is a certain link between provision of benefits and informed consent. Thus, the study participants may feel compelled to join a study because they are tempted by the prospec-tive services and because they are too impoverished to refuse (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research 1979, CIOMS 2002). This issue is more likely to be relevant to medical research, where rendition of services is more the norm. However, we contend that it is equally important to anthropology, though less explicitly dealt with in the research ethics codes – a point that once again highlights the issue of ‘vulnerability’.

Berreman, G. 1968. Is anthropology alive? Social responsibility in social anthropology. Current Anthropology 9(5): 391-396.

Brenneis, D. 2005. Documenting ethics. In: Meskell, L. and Pels, P. (eds) Embedding ethics, pp.239-252. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Caplan, P. 2003. Introduction: Anthropology and ethicsI In: Caplan, P. (ed.) The ethics of anthropology: Debates and dilemmas, pp.1-33. London & New York: Routledge.

Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) 2002. International ethical guidelines for biomedical research involving human subjects. Geneva: Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS).

Farmer, P. 1999. Infections and inequalities. The modern plagues. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Fluehr-Lobban, C. 1999. ‘Comment’ on Pels, P. (1999) ‘Professions of duplexity’. Current Anthropology, 40(2): 119.

— 2003a. Ethics and anthropology 1890-2000: A review of issues and principles. In: Fluehr-Lobban, C. (ed.) Ethics and the profession of anthropology: Dialogue for ethically conscious practice (2nd edition), pp.1-28. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

— 2003b. Informed consent in anthropological research: We are not exempt. In: Fluehr-Lobban, C. (ed.) Ethics and the profession of anthropology: Dialogue for ethically conscious practice, (2nd edition), pp.159-177. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

— 2003c. Dialogue for ethically conscious practice. In: Fluehr-Lobban C. (ed.) Ethics and the profession of anthropology: Dialogue for ethically conscious practice, (2nd edition), pp.225-245. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Geertz, C. 1983. Slide show: Evans-Pritchard’s African transparencies. Raritan: A Quarterly Review Fall: 62-80.

Marks, J. 2005. Your body, my property: The problem of colonial genetics in a postcolonial world. In Meskell, L. and Pels, P. (eds) Embedding ethics, pp.29-45. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Meskell, L. and Pels, P. 2005. Introduction: Embedding ethics. In Meskell, L. and Pels, P. (eds.) Embedding ethics, pp.1-26. Oxford and New York: Berg.

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Whereas the need for formal research ethics codes is not questioned in biomedicine, dissent has been voiced in anthropology. Critiques express a fear of ‘decontextualiza-tion’ (Akeroyd 1984: 153, Caplan 2003: 3), an impression of a ‘false consensus’ (Akeroyd 1984: 153) and ‘disem-bedded ethics’ (Meskell and Pels 2005: 23). Pels observes that: ‘the institutionalization of anthropological morals in a written code is by no means necessary’ – on the contrary, it may even be harmful (Pels 1999: 113). He is backed up by some colleagues (e.g. Agier 1999, Schrader 1999), whereas others disagree (e.g. Fluehr-Lobban 1999, Sluka 1999, Ulrich 1999). We find professional codes of ethics necessary and will argue our case below.

Historically, the various versions of AAA ethical codes have been (re-)formulated in reaction to crises of various kinds. Pels (1999: 110) claims that their purpose is to ‘pro-duce or maintain professional autonomy vis-à-vis the gov-ernments by which anthropologists were employed’, or more radically that ‘an anthropological code of ethics was and is largely meant to create an image of the discipline for those outside it’ (ibid.: 114).

Notwithstanding the importance of the relation-ship between researcher and sponsor, this point of view neglects any potential tensions between the researcher and the study population. With all due respect for anthro-pologists’ moral standards and abilities to adapt to local circumstances, power differences here often work in favour of the researcher. Anthropologists have mostly focused on their ‘weak’ position in relation to commis-sioning agencies, whereas their own ‘strong’ position vis-à-vis study populations has been underplayed. The same issue is reflected in the term coined by Nader (1976), ‘studying down’, and Sluka’s call for ‘an alternative code of ethics that takes power into account’ (1999). We con-tend that anthropologists need to face this issue and that this should be reflected in the research ethics codes. The fact that biomedical codes address this issue in consider-able detail (expressed in the terminology of ‘vulnerable groups’) could serve as a source of inspiration. And it adds perspective to Pels’ comment about ‘doctors and lawyers, who can treat their subjects in terms of the generalized ideal of “health” or “justice”’ (Pels 1999: 114).

According to Barnes (1999), there are three general types of research ethics codes: ‘regulatory’, which are backed up by sanctions, ‘hortative’, which set up models for ideal behaviour, and ‘educational’, which aim to point out eth-

ical hazards. The focus of the AAA ethics codes has varied over time (the latest, 1998 version being educational) (Fluehr-Lobban 2003c). We do not propose to examine this aspect of the codes in this article, but we believe that the points raised are relevant in all three types.

Study populations are increasingly asking questions and making demands that will force anthropologists to address key ethical issues, just as relationships with sponsors prompted discussions in the past. In fact this has already started, as we noted above.

ConclusionIn this article, we have made a preliminary exploration of some dimensions of research ethics as expressed in five prominent biomedical and anthropological research ethics codes. All five codes address the issue of informed consent, though the three biomedical codes dwell more on the particular challenges posed by vulnerable groups. All codes mention the potential harmful effects of the research on the study population, although the biomedical codes focus on harm caused by data collection, whereas anthropology codes assume that harm stems principally from how data is subsequently (mis)used. The provision of benefits is less explicit in anthropology when compared with the biomedical codes. Biomedicine would gain from a less technical and formal approach to research ethics (which risk alienating study participants), and could give more consideration to long-term effects of knowledge pro-duction and the ethical implications of the relationship to sponsors.

Ethical reviews are now standard procedure in biomed-ical research, and are increasingly required for projects involving anthropology (Fluehr-Lobban 2003c, Brenneis 2005). Since there is increased focus on research ethics from all quarters and many anthropologists now work in cross-disciplinary programmes, the academic discipline’s code of ethics is no longer a ‘housekeeping matter’ to be dealt with at our own pace and convenience purely within the discipline. What kinds of codes would best help in judging the ethics of projects, for example, that straddle the disciplines? How may we best seek inspiration from the codes other disciplines have developed regarding potential harm and provision of benefits? How might they learn from our insights? To further this debate, we call for more dialogue and comparison between ethical codes across disciplines. l

Mills, D. 2003. ‘Like a horse in blinkers’? A political history of anthropology’s research ethics. In: Caplan, P. (ed.) The ethics of anthropology: Debates and dilemmas, pp.37-54. London & New York: Routledge.

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National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) 2002. Ethical and policy issues in international research: Clinical trials in developing countries. Summary. Bethesda, Maryland: NBAC.

National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research 1979. ‘Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research’ (the Belmont Report). http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/belmont.html

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— 2004. The ethics of research related to healthcare in developing countries: A follow-up discussion paper based on the workshop held in Cape Town, South Africa 12-14 February 2004. London: Nuffield Foundation.

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Sluka, J. 1999. ‘Comment’ on Pels, P. (1999) ‘Professions of duplexity’. Current Anthropology, 40(2): 124-126.

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World Medical Association 2004. The Helsinki Declaration. 7th revision. Tokyo: WMA. http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm

Fig. 2. Benefits to the study community can come in many forms, such as a water pump. Mozambique, September 2007.

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