Practicum Exercise #4

Your Values and Ethics

Refer to appropriate Briller chapter and exercise for detailed instructions. Follow the template
to organize your response.

TYPE responses.
UPLOAD one copy to BBLearn; bring a hard or e-copy to class to workshop.
SAVE an e-copy. You will be turning in a revised copy as part of your Final
Project.

I. Select TWO of the following statements to develop. Answer each with at least one organized,
well-written paragraph.
These things are true for me:
I value most:
These influences guide my personal and professional decisions:
These are my core beliefs:
My core beliefs come from:

II. Select TWO of the following questions to answer. Answer each with at least one organized,
well-written paragraph. Be specific, e.g. use examples, in your responses.

What does it mean to be human?

How does anthropology contribute to a greater appreciation for a diversity of people and
ways of thinking?
What does it mean to think holistically and comparatively in anthropology?
What does it mean to you to work ethically as an anthropologist?

I.)
I value most earnestness and loyalty. Considering what comes with the territory of being
an anthropologist, that is the constant communication with other people for the sake of studying
and understanding them, it becomes readily apparent to me that the genuine presentation of
emotions from others can never be undervalued. I readily acknowledge that that is not always the
case, even for ethnographic research, but being able to work and get those genuine reactions out
of people also appeals to me.
My core beliefs come from an oddly balanced split of how I was raised, and how I ended
up interpreting the things in my life that happened around me after a certain point in my life. At
the age of twelve I lost my father, and at seventeen my only brother, and while I have never been
without my mother who supports me in any way that she can, our lives between and since those
two points have been more focused on just getting by and doing the best that we can. At the risk
of sounding pretentious, I had to mature a bit earlier than some of the people around me at the
time in order to adapt and make it through the situation that life had put in front of me. So really,
anything that I could label as my own personal beliefs come from everything that I had learned
with my family, and anything that I have done to make it through life since then.
II.) What does it mean to be human?
Before anthropological course work, my views on being human were pretty stereotypical,
i.e. everyone has good inside of them and things of that nature. Post even the relatively minimal
amount of coursework that I have participated in, those views have shifted quite a bit. At this
point, it just seems more reasonable to think that things are more along the lines of everyones
just trying to survive and find happiness. Even though the idea of universal constants in
anthropology is a debatable subject at most, there have been few if any cultures that have been
presented to me where those werent the two biggest goals. Thinking even that much makes
complete strangers way more relatable to me than they were before I took up anthropology as a
major of study.
What does it mean to you to work ethically as an anthropologist?
To me, working ethically and with a view point based around solid objectivity as an
anthropologist involves a set of golden rules besides the general set of ethics and study practices
that are given before anyone is able to even begin the earliest stages of their research. That is to
say, dont falsify results and avoiding other forms of academic dishonesty would be the obvious
things to work ethically as an anthropologist. But, to me specifically, it means always
maintaining the utmost patience and kindness with any and all people that one is to come across
in the field and throughout the course of their research. This is acknowledging that as an
anthropologist, you are always a guest to someone elses world, their culture, and the things that
make them a person in the eyes of themselves and everyone around them in their daily lives.
Being an ethical anthropologist to me is more or less being humble to the people giving you their
time, and always wiping your feet off before entering into their metaphorical door really.