Topic: The Dilemma of Participant Observation

Paper details:

Cultural anthropologists often face critical decisions when practicing participant observation. The video listed below documents ethnographic fieldwork carried out by Wynne Maggi in the Kalasha valleys of northern Pakistan. While doing research in a remote community, she experienced a trauma that affected her fieldwork and her life for years afterward. After viewing the video, consider what she could have done differently. Discuss two options. In the end, did she do the right thing? A related issue is whether she follow the ethical rule in anthropology of doing no harm to the people one is studying. What do you think about this last point? Why?