Some ethic dilemmas of anthropology work with actors involved in criminal activities

Abstract

If ethnographic fieldwork usually confronts researchers with ethical dilemmas, insofar as she is exposed to moral and epistemological criteria different from her own, fieldwork with actors involved in activities deemed illegal or immoral by mainstream society will multiply both frequency and intensity of said dilemmas. Our paper presents a series of ethical dilemmas from our own fieldwork experience on moralities and transgression in lower income neighborhoods, with the goal of discussing some of the ethical and methodological paradoxes looming over the ethnographer as well as the associated challenges to our position as researchers and moral actors.