Darkness in El Dorado Controversy

Late in the year 2000, an intellectual tsunami hit anthropology in America and beyond. It was generated by the controversy surrounding the publication of a book by Patrick Tierney called Darkness in El Dorado: How Anthropologists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. Five years after its publication, this unprecedented controversy was still rife with debate and far from settled. Moreover, it goes to the very heart of anthropology, with broad implications for every anthropologist. Primarily, it is a matter of professional ethics and more generally, of values.

Values have been a sincere concern of various practitioners of anthropology since its beginnings about 150 years ago. For example, many anthropologists have demonstrated their humanitarian commitment through advocacy work in promoting the survival, welfare, and rights of indigenous societies struggling under the pressures of Western colonialism and the genocide, ethnocide, and ecocide often associated with it. On the other hand, to this day, many anthropologists pursue science as if it were entirely amoral and apolitical.

The largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world, the American Anthropological [Page 668]Association (AAA), was established as early as 1902. However, the articulation of formal guidelines for professional ethics came decades later and grew only intermittently, through a succession of occasional declarations beginning with the brief “Resolution on Freedom of Publication,” issued in December 1948; then, a more extensive “Statement on Problems of Anthropological Research and Ethics,” in March 1967; next, the “Principles of Professional Responsibility,” in May 1971; and, most recently, the “Code of Ethics,” in June 1998. It was not until 1971 that the AAA finally established a standing Committee on Ethics, although by 1996, its function was reduced mostly to education. Usually, any concern with professional ethics within American anthropology has been more reactive than proactive, and more a matter of defensive maneuvering than constructively grappling with the issues head-on. Ethical concerns, and sometimes even actions, arise mostly during periods when scandals or controversies erupt, especially if they reach the public to threaten the image of the profession; but soon they decline, if not disappear completely, except if a publication record remains and/or through the research of historians. Many of these tendencies are exhibited in the most recent ethical crisis in the AAA,although it goes to the very heart of the discipline, with some enduring implications for every anthropologist.

This crisis exploded in late 2000, only partially subsided by the middle of 2002, and then erupted again in early 2005. It is characterized by unprecedented magnitude, complexity, difficulty, and ugliness. (An extensive archive is available on the Douglas W. Hume Web site.) The crisis arose in response to investigative journalist Patrick Tierney's book, with its provocative title and subtitle, Darkness in El Dorado: How Anthropologists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. His painstakingly detailed book is based on more than a decade of field and archival research. Tierney tried to document numerous and diverse allegations of violations of professional ethics and even of human rights by Napoleon A. Chagnon and his associates in their field research with the Yanomami. Some points in the book were challenged after investigations by various individuals and organizations. Nevertheless, many other points were confirmed by the AAA Task Force on Darkness in El Dorado and other researchers.

...