Savage Minds asks: Do anthropologists have a moral obligation to make their work accessible to the people they are writing about?

via zcache.com

 

Is it unethical to say something about someone that they cannot understand?

from Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog by Rex

 

Do anthropologists have a moral obligation to make their work accessible to the people they are writing about? The answer, to me, is an obvious ‘yes’. Although as someone who has blogged for almost a decade I seem to think that the public waits with baited breath for a description of my breakfast so I am maybe not the best person to ask. Still, I think most people can agree that anthropologists have a moral obligation to share their research with the community where they worked as well as the public. But how much of our scholarly output should be this sort of work?