Anthropology and Bioethics: linking knowledge production and professional regulation

The need for ethical reflection relating to the accountability of anthropological researchers has been an implicit part of the discipline ever since it became established in Britain and the US in the first half of the nineteenth century. This is because the 'field' and relationships stemming therefrom have been central in defining the nature of anthropological knowledge itself. The past two decades have especially been marked by watershed debates to do with the anthropological politics of locating the 'field' in relation to research and researcher (Clifford and Marcus 1986, Marcus and Fisher 1986, Gupta and Ferguson 1997 are good representatives of these shifts for the 1980s and 1990s respectively). Yet, despite this disciplinary reflection, the setting up and practice of actual guidelines for ethical conduct has been relatively slow, given impetus largely when the researched communities themselves have raised concerns or when anthropologists have undertaken fieldwork at 'home'.