Exercises in ethically engaged work in biological anthropology.

Autor: Zuckerman MK; Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures and Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi, USA.; The Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, District of Columbia, USA., Marklein KE; Department of Anthropology and the Center for Archaeological and Cultural Heritage, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, USA., Austin RM; Independent researcher., Hofman CA; The Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.; Laboratories of Molecular Anthropology and Microbiome Research and the Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: American journal of biological anthropology [Am J Biol Anthropol] 2024 Aug 23, pp. e25015. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Aug 23.
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.25015
Abstrakt: An ethical paradigm shift currently taking place within biological anthropology is pushing scholars to envisage and develop paths toward more ethical futures. Drawing from case studies in our own teaching, research, and fieldwork experience, we reflect on the complex, diverse, and dynamic nature of ethical considerations in our field. We discuss the acquisition and institutional narrative of a human osteological teaching collection at the University of Louisville as an embodiment of structural apathy turned structural violence, and the need for professional guidance in the potential retirement of deceased individuals from our classrooms. In documented collections (i.e., the Robert J. Terry Collection), we share our process and scholarly reemphasis of the humanity of a deceased individual through contextualized analysis (i.e., osteobiography and archival history) and postmortem agentive acts. Lastly, we present an archeological site in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which poses ethical concerns as biocultural bioarcheologists and archeologists attempt to negotiate the possible wishes of the deceased with the cultural value of reconstructing the community's otherwise undocumented past, all amidst the immediate threat of anthropogenic climate change. We offer these exercises and discussion in ethically engaged projects transparently and with an overarching admission that none are models for replication. Rather, at various stages in our careers and engagement with ethics, we acknowledge that progress is worthwhile, albeit challenging, and that proceeding forward collectively as biological anthropologists should be deliberate, reflexive, and compassionate for deceased individuals and their descendant communities, as well as among and between colleagues.
(© 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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