My social media engagement with research interlocutors is shaped by my positionality as a 'halfie' anthropologist based abroad who conducts ethnographic research on violence and peacemaking in the Philippines and the diaspora. On the one hand, social media connectivity facilitates certain research processes, networking, activism, and solidarity building. Yet with social media's security issues and amid shifting political tides, such connectivity poses ethical and security risks, resulting in social media-specific ethical concerns. I demonstrate these points through an account of my engagement with Facebook, a ubiquitous platform for communicating among Filipinos. In the process, I reflect on some of the ways in which social media connectivity between researcher and interlocutors reconfigures the relationality, temporality, hierarchies, and affect of the ethnographic 'field'.
Hansjörg Dilger is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin with a specialisation in critical medical anthropology and the anthropology of religious diversity. His research has a regional focus on Tanzania and South Africa and migratory contexts in Germany. He was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna and visiting fellow at the University of Witwatersrand (both in 2014) and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Florida (2005-2007). Between 2015 and 2019, he was President of the German Anthropological Association (GAA): in this capacity, he and the GAA board pushed toward the firm integration of ethical reflexivity in Social and Cultural Anthropology in Germany. Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo talked with him about research ethics and the role of professional organisations and academic institutions.
Research ethics is integral to the entire process of knowledge production: from conceptualising and designing a research project and gathering, analysing and managing data, to writing and other forms of representation and engagement. Yet, there is often a lack of attention given to research ethics pedagogy and praxis in various academic institutions. With a focus on research ethics in volatile contexts, this special issue aims to provide various perspectives on research ethics from scholars positioned within a particular discipline, such as anthropology, political science, history, sociology and area studies, among others, as well as those with an inter- or transdisciplinary perspective. Drawing from concrete research experiences and how they have dealt with ethical dilemmas as well as critical reflection and framing of research ethics, the contributors offer ways to think through the relationships between research ethics, power, violence, inequalities, institutions and pedagogy in various volatile research contexts and institutional frameworks.
This volume brings together a series of discussions by scholars from a range of disciplinary, (trans)regional and epistemic perspectives that came out of the Berlin-based "co2libri" networking initiative, with longstanding collaborative partners based in the global South. "Co2libri" stands for "conceptual collaboration: living borderless research interaction". As an interdisciplinary and transregional oriented initiative, co2libri envisages a multicentric perspective that integrates neglected positions of Southern theory and praxis into the heart of academic conversations. Co2libri's collaborative endeavor builds on long-standing active connections with partners in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Instead of setting an agenda from the North, it proposes to figure out ways forward through collaborative engagement, building on relationships of mutual trust. Using formats that facilitate substantial and open-ended discussion, we are re-thinking theory and method, academic practices, and research ethics, while keeping material inequalities in view. Contributors to this edited volume are working toward the implementation of various innovative activities, research perspectives and collaboration formats which all subscribe to the principle of dialogue on equal footing with scholars and activists based in divergent positionalities along and beyond the Global North-South divide. In different ways, the authors work toward the goal of producing more adequate, and more sensitive, critical knowledge, and applying a fresh view to approach, methods, and ethical standards. Overall, the volume works, sometimes in exploratory ways, with alternative frames of reference while it presents diverse theorizations of lived experiences. ; This volume brings together a series of discussions by scholars from a range of disciplinary, (trans)regional and epistemic perspectives that came out of the Berlin-based "co2libri" networking initiative, with longstanding collaborative partners based in the global South. "Co2libri" stands for "conceptual collaboration: living borderless research interaction". As an interdisciplinary and transregional oriented initiative, co2libri envisages a multicentric perspective that integrates neglected positions of Southern theory and praxis into the heart of academic conversations. Co2libri's collaborative endeavor builds on long-standing active connections with partners in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Instead of setting an agenda from the North, it proposes to figure out ways forward through collaborative engagement, building on relationships of mutual trust. Using formats that facilitate substantial and open-ended discussion, we are re-thinking theory and method, academic practices, and research ethics, while keeping material inequalities in view. Contributors to this edited volume are working toward the implementation of various innovative activities, research perspectives and collaboration formats which all subscribe to the principle of dialogue on equal footing with scholars and activists based in divergent positionalities along and beyond the Global North-South divide. In different ways, the authors work toward the goal of producing more adequate, and more sensitive, critical knowledge, and applying a fresh view to approach, methods, and ethical standards. Overall, the volume works, sometimes in exploratory ways, with alternative frames of reference while it presents diverse theorizations of lived experiences.
In the comment "Critical Research Ethics as Decolonial Praxis" Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo emphasises the importance of critical research ethics in decolonial praxis within academia, highlighting the harmful effects of irresponsible and extractive scholarship that perpetuates epistemic violence and injustice by disregarding non-Western epistemologies, knowledge-makers, agency, and history. The author argues that confronting the embeddedness of knowledge production in imperial, colonial, and patriarchal ideologies, practices, and histories is crucial for engaging in a rehumanising and redistributive academic praxis. June Rubis continues the discussion, pointing out the limitations of superficial attempts to decolonise academic institutions, which often exclude Indigenous voices and fail to confront ongoing colonial violence. She suggests that a more meaningful decolonial project requires remaking relationships towards liberatory justice, including ethical collaboration and accountability with the communities researchers work with. Antony George Pattathu concludes that decolonial praxis and ethics must address colonial continuities and complicities and work towards preventing their perpetuation in research. He focusses on the roles of rehumanising and of Whiteness in decolonial praxis, critical research ethics, and the importance of the emotional dimension involved in decolonial debates.
Research ethics is integral to the entire process of knowledge production: from conceptualising and designing a research project and gathering, analysing and managing data, to writing and other forms of representation and engagement. Yet, there is often a lack of attention given to research ethics pedagogy and praxis in various academic institutions. With a focus on research ethics in volatile contexts, this special issue aims to provide various perspectives on research ethics from scholars positioned within a particular discipline, such as anthropology, political science, history, sociology and area studies, among others, as well as those with an inter- or transdisciplinary perspective. Drawing from concrete research experiences and how they have dealt with ethical dilemmas as well as critical reflection and framing of research ethics, the contributors offer ways to think through the relationships between research ethics, power, violence, inequalities, institutions and pedagogy in various volatile research contexts and institutional frameworks.
What happens to place-based, intergenerational knowledge in conditions of displacement? Here we attempt an answer to this question by reflecting on the experiences of the Indigenous peoples of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, collectively known as Lumads. For decades, Lumad communities have faced violence and displacement at the hands of the Philippine military, corporate armies, civilian militias, and rebel groups. Most accounts of Lumads portray them as passive victims who are "caught in between" warring factions of capitalists and leftists. This paper aims to augment a small but growing body of work that challenges such accounts and centers the historical agency of Lumads. In particular, we highlight some of the ways in which Lumads make life, place, and memory in the schools and community centers that they have established at three sites in Mindanao and Manila. In becoming Lumad places, these are sites in which Lumads of different ages, ethnicities, and social standings actively remake their relations with themselves, with their surroundings, and with others; they are sites of intergenerational communication and consternation; they are sites of pan-ethnic identity formation and solidarity; and they are sites of despair, repair, and potentially transformation.(Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)
"The population of a small island in the middle of Danajon Bank in the Philippines, one of the six double barrier coral reefs in the world, is reliant almost solely on the resources of the sea for their livelihood. From the twenty families who originally settled in the island during World War II, the population has now soared to more than 300 families. The dramatic increase in the population is due to the migration of fishers to the island because of compressor fishing, a dangerous and unsustainable fishing practice introduced in the 1980s that ushered in a period of affluence in the island. In recent years, however, the affluence has given way to prolonged periods of suffering. Dwindling catch due to overexploitation of resources, increasing price of basic commodities, and unfair market relations in which the fishers' catch are bought at very low prices have made hunger and indebtedness a common experience. This is compounded in recent months by changes in the environment such as winds that have become stronger, stay longer, and become more frequent, and sea waters that rise more often than before. Life has become very difficult for the fishers and they are left with very little viable options for their livelihood, forcing them to confront their attitude that there is no other livelihood aside from compressing fishing. Many have decided to migrate and work in other parts of the country as helpers or construction workers and, in recent months, many more are planning to leave despite the high financial costs of doing so and the uncertainty that awaits them. These are some of the key findings of an ethnographic study conducted over a period of 2 and ½ months of fieldwork. The study was able to document the complex and dynamic relationships of environmental change, unsustainable fishing practice, and unfair market relations, and how these impel population movement in the context of a small fishing community that is highly vulnerable to changes in the environment and the operation of the market. In the case of these fishers, migration could be seen as a desperate survival strategy of a people who have very little real options." (authors abstract)
