Thoughts about responsibility in anthropological research, from a study with the Baka Pygmies

Abstract

Constraints on studies of present-day populations have been increasing over the past 20 years. Looking beyond whether or not each type of constraint is justified, the effect is to raise a barrier which is primarily a response to theoretical questions from people who seem to have very limited experience on the ground and who know even less about the expectations of the populations they propose to ‘protect’. For fifteen years, I have been regularly and systematically monitoring a population of Baka pygmies in south-eastern Cameroon to study their somatic growth and life history. The warmth of the Baka people's welcome to researchers, their curiosity about ‘other worlds’ and their interest in the subjects addressed by the scientists who visit them stand in sharp contrast with the numerous and constraining restrictions placed upon those who want to go there for scientific projects in which the Baka themselves are interested and actively participating. The divorce between the interests of the Baka and the provisions of international protocols necessarily raises questions about the foundations on which certain organizations manage contacts and, to a certain extent, determine the ‘life’ of indigenous peoples, since the latter, with very few exceptions, are absent from the committees which have to decide on research projects that involve them. It is essential for groups concerned by a research project to be consulted and if a committee has to assess the research project, members of the group concerned must be invited to participate in it. This would not add further delay to these already excessively long and expensive procedures. Above all, it would give the groups concerned full sovereignty over research projects concerning them.