Towards interactive professional ethics

Abstract

over ethics of development in relation to David Mosse s book on pp 17-19 of this issue. Ethics as defendable process Recent years have seen an upsurge of concern about ethics and ethical discourses. Anthropology, too, has developed an 'ethical anxiety' (Faubion 2003) and writings have proliferated around ethics in the discipline (Strathern 2000a, Caplan 2003a, Fluehr-Lobban 2004a, Meskell and Pels 2005), and ethics as more broadly conceived (Ong and Collier 2005). This broader concern has also been reflected in the concerns the Association of Social Anthropology (ASA) has with the development of the organization's own ethical guidelines, written as a professional code of conduct for the research process (see www.theasa.org). While most anthropological organizations are similarly concerned with ethical issues, here we focus specifically on the rationale behind the ASA's proposal to broaden the base from which its members relate to and engage with the ethical.