Introduction
Public anthropology has advanced tremendously over the decades. It has become one of the world’s leading professions in assessing the quality of life in the world and the whole of humanity in general. Human life has tremendously changed over the decades. The quality of life and the pattern of living in the 21st century have evolved tremendously. Public anthropology has been the only discipline that has tried to explain the problems beyond the disciplines and the larger community current issues such as globalization.
In the presentation of this Op- Ed, the essay will focus or introduce the same to some case studies and try to explain why and how some aspects of anthropology should either change or permanently remain the way they are. The case study on the Guatemala syphilis experiment from 1946-1948, the case tries to expound on the historical injustice of a violation of a medical ethics and practice law where doctors knowingly and intentionally infected the soldiers and prostitutes and other mental patients with syphilis and some other sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala bay without their consent which resulted in about 83 losses of lives, in 2010 however the USA formally apologized but the damage was already done. This trend in the regards of public anthropology should be stopped hence forth and morals and ethics abided by.
The second case involves the unending debate on the study of old bones and fossils and whether they should be preserved or perverse. The case was one involving 500 year old bones of some family’s descendant in Ontario that was robbed and which almost led to cross border wars. This was considered as the wrongful acquisition of the bones for scholarly research without proper authorization or acquisition. This is serious given the sensitivity involved especially when studying human remains. This is among the many other cases of unethical grave robberies and excavation of human remains for scientific studies.
Modern public anthropology should address such sensitive ethical issues. Sensitive cultural heritage and conservation sites should not be tempered with in the study of modern anthropology. This should be addressed amicably through the established IRB to regulate the carrying of research along sensitive ethical lines. All research studies should be done in the open and in full knowledge of the law so as to avert unethical human research behind closed doors. This ensures transparency and appropriate research. This will ensure modern public anthropology abides by rules and regulations in research in studying the evolving traits of man complex daily life.
Even so, IRBs should find what is ethical and follows the law and uphold it and also find the unethical concepts and put up laws that protect the vulnerable people and situations. The whole process of conducting field research should be handled with a lot of concern when it comes to talking or researching about some issues but that does not mean that researchers burry their heads in the sand and stop going out into the field to do their work. Proper structures and procedures need to be put so that they can guide how meaningful acquisition of data or information is done so that it does not look like the lives of the vulnerable populations. If this is not done then it means that proper and conclusive research on these people will never be done and this kills research completely.
Research will be complete and meaningful if IRBs came out to support it and not poke fingers at it and make it infiltrated. Research has completely lost meaning these days simply because of the obstacles that the researchers go through some of which are creations of people who seem ignorant of the happenings in society. There could not have been a better thing than conducting conclusive research on the marginalized and vulnerable populations because it is because of it that ways of helping them out are established. In fact, if they were to be left out these people will feel like they are ignored and that no one seems to care about them and their lives. If only petty things were to be ignored and researchers be appreciated for who they are and what they are doing, then most probably there could be solutions to some of the problems ailing humanity more so the vulnerable populace.
Work cited
