annotations

This is assignment #1 ‘LA ETHNOGRAPHY PROJECT’ Attached below!

project focused on Melrose would be terrific.  You could do a lot with mapping your observations of people’s use of the streets.  Who walks the streets and when and how (walking, skateboarding, jogging, etc.).  You could also do something that is called a “transect walk” which is a walking interview.  If you could walk down the street with someone, you could ask them about their connections to the street. What experiences have they had on Melrose? What places, corners, sidewalks have special meanings?  You could ask people to point out which part of the street symbolizes the meaning of Melrose for them. Why is this place so special in LA?  You could also do a lot with observations of fashion in the streets.  You could discuss fashion meanings with folks who are especially fashionable. What are they trying to say through the clothing that they are wearing?  Another thing you could map are the smells of Melrose.  When walking the streets there are any number of compelling smells from interesting foods, perfumes, and cannabis. Try to have fun with this project. it’s a great space to study, and you deserve to enjoy your academic work!” Melrose Ave. is Located in Los Angeles california. I need 5 annoations with the references attached on how those reports would help my research project!

Second assignment

In a Word document, include the following information:

Topic of your final paper. It can be a working title or a brief description of what you plan to research on.

Justification. Why this topic or issue is interesting to you and why it is important to explore beyond what you have presented on or what we have discussed during class.

For that assignment I’d like to focus on Human remains and ethical practices. I’ve attached 1 article we used in an assignment as an example! (Fossheim)

First assignment – 5 short annotations on Melrose ave in Los Angeles

Second assignment- a topic of final paper and a quick annotation on that

LA ETHNOGRAPHY PROJECT
BACKGROUND
Los Angeles is a fascinating city that is hard to define. Some theorists think LA is hard to define
because it does not seem to have a clear center like “The Loop” in Chicago, ‘downtown’ in New
York City or the zócalo in Mexico City. According to Mariana Petersen’s ethnography Sound,
Space, and the City (2010), she demonstrates how officials in Los Angeles sought to improve the
image of the city by artificially creating a downtown center (e.g. The Civic Center). Petersen
questions what this type of center does for the city—does it actually bring diverse people in Los
Angeles together? It appears that the Civic Center defines the city in a particular way, but does
this new definition resonate with the city’s history and with the people who live and work there?
Other theorists, such as Norman Klein, think LA is hard to define because it is a city that has
been forgotten. Klein focuses on the fact that much of the city’s history has been erased as
neighborhoods were dislocated and rearranged in order for highways to be built and for the city
to be modernized in the 1950s. In The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of
Memory (1997), Klein argues most people are not aware of the radical changes that were made to
LA. Modernization has created a good deal of historical amnesia, and has left a blank space for
people to fill in their own definitions of the history and character of the city. Klein finds it
1
humorous that tourists who visit LA assume an authority over knowledge of the city when they
haven’t even visited the city for more than a month. Meanwhile, local residents hesitate to
characterize the city because they know that there are gaps in their knowledge. For Klein, these
reactions are curious and suggest that not only is LA difficult to define, but there is a question as
to who has the right to define it.
Objective: Using anthropological tools and methods, you will describe and analyze a facet of
urban life in Los Angeles. This project may be “place-based” (i.e. defined by a neighborhood,
area, or space within the city) or “people-based” (i.e. defined by a group of people who are most
likely to be on the move or located in more than one space). The project requires fieldwork. You
must visit your fieldsite a minimum of 2 times during the semester, so you need to choose a site
or a group of people that will be feasible for you to study.
Process: There are 3 parts to the project: 1) Literature review; 2) Fieldwork; 3) Analysis, Write
Up and Drawing Connections.
The Scope of Assignment: By the end of the course, you are expected to write a 10 page essay
[15 pages for “490” students”] based on your review of literature and data collection. You will
need to integrate your fieldnotes with an analysis of urban life in LA that is informed by the
theoretical readings in the course and possibly historical readings that relate to the space or group
of people that you choose to study. Your final project may include photographs, maps, tables,
recordings, illustrations and/or any other form of documentation that you feel is important to the
story that you wish to tell. Expect to include a bibliography of references that inform your
narrative.
Possible Research Topics:
Remember, when developing a research topic, I would like for you to focus on an anthropology
of the city rather than an anthropology in the city. That is to say, at the end of the paper, readers
will want to hear your insights about the city through the lens of your topic. The context of the
city is central to the project.
I hope you will develop a question that is important to you AND is answerable by reviewing
literature, conducting participant observation, a few interviews, and documenting by creating
maps and other visual representation of the outcomes of your research.
Here are some sample research questions to consider:
How do people use and relate to public space in xyz neighborhood?
How do people live in neighborhoods undergoing gentrification? How does gentrification affect
people’s lives?
How do people make use of and relate to specific forms of transportations such as public buses
and trains?
2
How is urban life expressed through food, music, car culture, clothing, art, performance,
architecture, or another form of cultural expression?
How does the city shape individuals and communities’ experiences with health care, education,
housing, financial, political, and legal systems among other systems?
How do people remember parts of a city?
How do people envision the future of a city?
Sample outline for the paper and approximate page length of discussions
Introduction and personal motivation behind your research question (1 page)
Review of relevant literature that contextualizes your project (2 pages) (490 students=5 pages)
Discussion of your research methods (1/2 page)
Display of data collected (descriptions based on participant observation, maps, summary of
interviews, etc.)(3 pages)
Interpretation of data (2 pages)
Discussion of connection to literature in the course (1 page; 490 students= 3 pages)
Conclusion (1/2 page)
Bibliography
Appendices (include interview schedules, maps, images, etc.)
Grading rubric
The project is worth 100 pts. Note, that a 1/3 of the points are earned by having original data and
displaying it in an organized way.
Skills
Introduction and personal motivation behind your research question (1 page):
clarify the research question, explain why it is an urban question, a relevant
question, and an important question for you to answer.
Points
0-5 pts.
Review of relevant literature that contextualizes your project (2 pages) (490
students=5 pages): Well-chosen literature, clearly and accurately discussed, well
organized discussion
Discussion of your research methods (1/2 page) Describe your selection of
methods, decisions you had to make in order to carry out your methods, dilemmas
and discoveries encountered when employing methods, and ethical considerations.
Display of data collected (descriptions based on participant observation, maps,
summary of interviews, etc.)(3 pages). Author presents data in an organized and
easy to follow manner.
0-15 pts.
Interpretation of data (2 pages) Author discusses patterns and compelling
observations in the data and possible meanings of those patterns and observations.
Author considers possible counter interpretations of the data.
0-10 pts.
0-5 pts.
0-30 pts.
3
Discussion of connection to literature in the course (1 page; 490 students= 3
pages). Author draws a minimum of two connections to readings and content in our
class, gives a thorough overview of the reading/concept, author’s argument, and
explains how it relates to their observations.
0-15 pts.
490 Students must draw at least three (3) connections
Conclusion: (1/2 page). Recap the discussion in the paper and reiterate main
finding, observation, insight that you made through the project.
0-5 pts.
Bibliography: correct use of style, alphabetical, consistent, well organized
Quality of Writing: Is the paper well organized and neatly edited?
0-5 pts.
0-10 pts.
4
Kirsty Squires David Errickson
Nicholas Márquez-Grant
•
•
Editors
Ethical Approaches
to Human Remains
A Global Challenge in Bioarchaeology
and Forensic Anthropology
123
Editors
Kirsty Squires
School of Law, Policing and Forensics
Staffordshire University, Science Centre
Stoke-on-Trent, UK
David Errickson
Defence Academy of the United Kingdom
Cranfield Forensic Institute, Cranfield
University
Shrivenham, UK
Nicholas Márquez-Grant
Defence Academy of the United Kingdom
Cranfield Forensic Institute, Cranfield
University
Shrivenham, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-32925-9
ISBN 978-3-030-32926-6
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32926-6
(eBook)
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019, corrected publication 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard
to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Front cover image by Eduardo Hernandez©
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Chapter 4
Research on Human Remains: An Ethics
of Representativeness
Hallvard J. Fossheim
Abstract Within the complex matrix of ethical considerations in the handling of
human remains, the notion that human remains represent, stands out as having
serious implications for research and curatorship. Representativeness reminds us of
the ethical relevance of the group level of identities in the European framework,
actualised not least in terms of ethnicity. In line with basic research ethical principles, it is the wellbeing of those now living, which forms the most central consideration in questions of representativeness. Where continuities exist between
previous populations and identifiable groups today, knowledge of such representativeness is necessary for acting ethically and for reaching legitimate solutions.
4.1
Introduction
Ethical considerations in the European area concerning research on human remains
constitute a complex web of issues, partly defined by national peculiarities of a
historical and political nature (O’Donnabhain and Lozada 2014, 4–9 and relevant
chapters). Among the relevant historical variables is any colonial position in a given
country’s past. Similarly, along a related political axis are current or recent
engagements with nation building or nationalism. Cutting across such variables are
the sites of ethical quandary, among which are not least excavation, curation, display,
return/repatriation, and reburial. The nature of the issues at each site will, in any
concrete case, be heavily shaped by the matters first mentioned—e.g., a history of
nation building sets up models of us/them that strongly affect attitudes to the display
of remains; a colonial past forms a backdrop to any demand for repatriation.1
Ethnicity is the most ethically charged notion to give impetus to and arise from
these historical, political, and scientific tensions. ‘Ethnicity’ is a multifaceted and,
1
For the case of the UK, the historical background with a wealth of concrete examples is provided
by Fforde (2004).
H. J. Fossheim (&)
Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen, Pb 7805 5020 Bergen, Norway
e-mail: Hallvard.Fossheim@uib.no
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
K. Squires et al. (eds.), Ethical Approaches to Human Remains,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32926-6_4
59
60
H. J. Fossheim
in many usages, fuzzy concept, sometimes overlapping with ‘race’ as a more or less
biological notion. At other times, ‘ethnicity’ denotes variables primarily transferable as memes rather than genes (James 2016, especially Sect. 3). Although various
disciplines of research—among them anthropology, archaeology, and medical
sciences—have certainly done their part in adding to this mix, ethnicity is not a
category that was created by science or has found a home only in the spheres of
research (Wimmer 2013). Europe has been in the questionable position of initiating
two global wars in the last century or so, both of them centrally motivated by
considerations of ethnicity; the same can be said of geographically more limited
conflicts (see Lipphardt 2014 for an overview of some global developments in
research methods and ideologies after World War II). On a less sinister note, the
map of Europe is generally a map of vaguely expressed ethnicities: collective
cultural identities making each individual part of overlapping sets of shared traditions, cultural expressions, and relations to other groups. In the European area as
elsewhere, ethnicity is a source of personal identity and pride as well as a constant
cause of contestation. It is also a dimension of research in which archaeology
constantly dips its toe and sometimes immerses itself.
It would be wholly unrealistic here to try to offer anything like a roadmap to all
extant constellations of the notions and tensions just mentioned. Instead, I will
provide what I hope is more useful: an analysis of representativeness as, ethically
speaking, what is in play in a wide plethora of cases, combined with exploration of
one case study from Norway which illustrates some of the most central challenges
associated with representativeness.
Remains cannot, unlike many other human targets for research, speak for
themselves. But they do represent. Human remains are of interest to research
because they represent the individuals and groups whose remains they are. The
same is true of their ethical interest: the status of human remains as something
representing human individuals and groups is crucial to what makes them ethically
salient. This status is what I shall call their representativeness. Part of such representativeness is quite concrete: at some time in the past, this skull was the skull of a
living person, and the skull’s representativeness includes its relating to that person.
Perhaps more complicated and abstract is representativeness that transcends the
individual that was once there by pointing to something that the individual partook
in, e.g. a family, a religious tradition, or an ethnic group. Ethically speaking, these
various identities, available to us through knowledge of provenance and history, are
all somehow present in the human remains. Representativeness is thus an ethically
relevant relation between human remains and the humans whose remains they were,
where those humans must be conceived in terms of both individuals and groups.
The fact of representativeness presents us with ethical challenges. On the good
side, the representing nature of human remains forms a point of departure for
securing representativeness among the living, in processes where decisions are
made concerning the handling of human remains. This way, we also move beyond
mere descriptions of pervasive attitudes to an analysis of the normative considerations at the heart of those attitudes: What are the values at stake? Only by
4 Research on Human Remains …
61
considering the normative core of the situation can we hope to be able to evaluate
current conflicts and find optimal solutions for future practices.
The ethics of research on human remains belongs within the broader framework
of normative research ethics. Research ethics is not primarily an academic theory in
the province of philosophy, but practices and reflections that build on and revolve
around a set of principles, developed and specified to provide practical help. In its
most frugal form, research ethics as a general framework for relating to the world
amounts to three such principles. Respect for the individuals and groups concerned,
ensuring good consequences and avoiding bad ones (this is sometimes referred to in
terms of beneficence), and justice. Varieties of these basic principles have been
treated as explicitly definitive for research ethics at least since the Belmont report
(National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and
Behavioral Research 1979). Guidelines in research ethics, whether general or more
specific, are still articulated along the outline they provide. We should thus expect
any results to be traceable back to one or several of these three principles.
In what follows, I will initially (Sect. 4.2) provide information about the Sami
remains from Neiden, which I take to be a paradigmatic example for illustrating the
complex identities of human remains, and the sort of ethical challenges we face
when making choices about the handling of such remains. Specifically, the case
provides an analysis into six ways in which such human remains may be expected
to represent identities that go beyond their status as mere objects. After reminding
the reader of the three basic research ethical principles that any person responsible
for handling human remains—and a fortiori the present argument—must recognise
(Sect. 4.3), I show how issues of representativeness relate to cases where the
remains belong to known individuals (Sect. 4.4). The chapter then addresses a
major issue of representativeness: Should the past or the present have ethical priority? (Sect. 4.5). After thus delineating the two perspectives of representativeness
(i.e. the past and the present), I face the possible objection that prioritising the
present might lead to an unfortunate form of relativism and undermine claims to
truth (Sect. 4.6). I conclude with a general reflection over how researchers’
responsibilities are generated, partly by their co-creating of the identities they study
over time (Sect. 4.7).
4.2
The Sami Remains from Neiden
Research on the Sami people in Norway provides a pertinent example of the ethical
centrality of representativeness.2 The most important collection of human bones in
Norway is the Schreiner collection, which is today housed by the Institute for Basic
2
For a still instructive overview of issues pertaining to negotiations between this ethnic group and
the nation state, see Hylland Eriksen (1991, esp. 271–274).
62
H. J. Fossheim
Medicine, which is part of the University of Oslo. The original motivation behind
the collection was, to a great extent, founded in the physical anthropology of the
early twentieth century, and 95% of the collection stems from Kristian Emil
Schreiner’s period as Director of the University of Oslo’s Anatomical Institute
(1908–1945), the original site for the collection. Schreiner both organised excavations and participated in the trade in human remains then common between
Anatomical institutes (Kyllingstad 2015).
The Schreiner collection is still in use for research (Institute of Basic Medical
Sciences 2017). According to an agreement made in the 1990s, before conducting
research on Sami remains belonging to the Schreiner collection, the investigator is
required to ask permission from the Norwegian Sami Parliament, which has the
authority to allow or deny research on this material.3
A recent case involving human remains from the Schreiner collection concerned
95 skeletons stemming from the Sami population of Neiden in Finnmark. The
remains had been unearthed from a local graveyard in 1915 on assignment from
Schreiner, against the protests of the local Sami. The Sami Parliament decided to
rebury the remains. The reburial took place in 2011, although some current
inhabitants of Neiden were against it because they felt the need for historically
informed research to be overriding (Norwegian National Committee for the
Evaluation of Research on Human Remains (SKJ) 2014). Historically informed
representation is of the essence in such cases. The Neiden remains represented
various values and relations on at least six related axes.
(1) The remains from Neiden represented the Sami population (and so it was
natural and reasonable that the Sami Parliament should have the responsibility
of handling the case);
(2) The Neiden remains also represented the Skolte Sami, a specific ethnic
sub-group of the Sami that has not always been treated as at one with the
greater group;
(3) In addition to this, it should go almost without saying that they represented the
local community of Neiden;
(4) Naturally, they also represented family lineages;
(5) Since the Skolte Sami were traditionally inhabiting an area bordering Norway,
Finland, and Russia, and at least some of the remains had been buried before
the borders were formally established as they now are, there is also the ghost of
nationality as a relevant representational dimension;
(6) Last but not least, as the Skolte Sami have traditionally been Russian Orthodox
Christians, the remains have a representational value along the axis of religion.
The initial move for reburial was carried out by a Russian Orthodox congregation. This combination of religion and initiative was in the event a factor in the
decision to rebury the remains, all on the background of ethnicity as the major
category behind the story. In any concrete case, we of course also see further
This procedure was first officially suggested by Lønning et al. (1998, 22 [Sect. 4]).
3
4 Research on Human Remains …
63
ethically relevant factors playing their part, such as histories of deception or force.
However, these issues matter on a practical level today, mainly because representativeness makes them relevant to today’s individuals or groups. In the case of
Neiden, current representativeness is relevant for all the six dimensions listed.4
In considering how the Neiden story illustrates representativeness as a typically
complex ethical issue, it also bears emphasising that the six different axes listed above
are rarely entirely aligned in any single case. Each axis characteristically singles out a
group or population that substantially overlaps with, without being identical to what
is suggested by, those of the other axes. For instance, as ethnic determinations can
come in several degrees of specification (1 and 2), these are not unproblematic even
when compared to each other; and whereas any ascription of ethnicity might tend to
overlap with religion (6), the two will normally not be identical; nor will any of them
be identical to the dimension of nationality (5). Even a world so simple that all the
circles had been concentric would still be a world with a multitude of axes of
representativeness, and the challenges related to this state of affairs.
4.3
Representativeness and Research Ethics
When carrying out research on a given group, the researcher has a basic responsibility to make sure that he or she interacts with the group in a manner which is
sound as far as the representativeness of the individuals involved is concerned. If
we return to the three research ethical principles (outlined in the introduction of this
chapter), three considerations come to the fore, which have to do with an understanding of the researcher as a responsible agent within a broader social framework.
First, there is the general research ethical demand that one respects whoever one is
doing research on. This is about acknowledging that when the research is on
humans, the object of study is also a subject. It is an expression of respect for the
personhood (or sometimes potential personhood) of others, which typically takes
the form of an acknowledgement that those directly affected should have a say
concerning the research, whether through consent or consultation.
Second, there is the general research ethical demand not to cause undue harm. This
consideration may also be understood in terms of respect, but it often applies much more
widely. We are not only autonomous, or potentially autonomous, beings. We are also
vulnerable beings—beings that can get hurt, or injured, or suffer in all kinds of ways.
Acknowledging that research does not take place in a vacuum means being open to the
possibility that research may also have negative consequences, not only physically but on
psychological, social, and political levels. Contributing to a denigratory or stigmatising
misrepresentation of a given group of people is, as such, a negative consequence.
4
For reminders of the relations between historical background and current practices, peruse entries
including treatments of Jewish or Sami remains in Márquez-Grant and Fibiger (2011, e.g. 449–
450).
64
H. J. Fossheim
Third is justice. Justice as a concept is both vague and ambiguous. But one
obvious meaning is the fair and reasonable treatment of different groups, avoiding
unreasonable favouritism of some and the mistreatment or stigmatisation of others.
Judiciously understanding groups and their relations with other groups, and acting
with a basis in such insight, is at the heart of justice as a research ethical consideration. These are all normative reasons expressing responsibility concerning representativeness (for a more detailed sketch of the three principles, cf. National
Commission 1979, Part B).
4.4
Individuals and Representativeness
The typical case surrounding the analysis, retention, or display of human remains
will bring up ethically relevant worries akin to those exemplified by the Neiden
case, due to links of representativeness between a more or less limited set of
remains and living groups. At one extreme end of the spectrum is a subset of cases
where the human remains continue to be individualised, and can even be identified
as stemming from a singled-out person. The four examples that follow are known
cases that should suffice in order to indicate some of what is special about them:
• Charles Byrne. Against his wishes, the remains of “the Irish Giant” (eighteenth
century) were procured for medical science and displayed (Greenfieldboyce
2017).
• Sarah Baartman. “The Hottentott Venus” died in 1815; originating in
South-Western Africa, displayed in London and Paris (in the latter place also
after her death and until 2002) (Parkinson 2016).
• “El Negro”. A Tswana warrior exhumed by a French dealer a few days after his
burial in 1831 and subsequently displayed in France and then Spain until 1997,
his partial remains were finally reburied in Gaborone in 2000 (Westerman 2016).
• Julia Pastrana. Stemming from Mexico, she was presented as “the Ape
Woman” on European and Russian tours; upon death, the display continued
with the embalmed bodies of her and her son (Hals Gylseth and Toverud 2003).
Her remains were stored with a view to medical research until buried in Mexico
in 2014.
In these special situations, it can be argued that the most important and overriding representativeness involved concerns the person who was once there. A main
dimension of representativeness is then one between the remains and a past individual. This is of course a relation that is always present in all cases of research on
human remains, but these cases bring it to the fore.
At the same time, however, it is also important to bear in mind that no one is
only an individual. The history of each of these persons presents us with an intricate
web of further ways of representativeness that are sometimes potentially, sometimes
obviously, ethically relevant. To mention only a couple of threads worthy of
4 Research on Human Remains …
65
examination, Julia Pastrana was in all likelihood a Christian as well as a member of
a tribe; both she and Sarah Baartman were women; Charles Byrne came from a land
of relative poverty and partial subjugation.
Not unreasonably, how to deal with such cases in an ethically responsible
manner must be as individualised as are the histories and backgrounds of each of
these individuals. But even in such histories, which bring out and emphasise the
individual in a way not typical for research, the complexities of representativeness
remain. El Negro reminds us perhaps most starkly of historical perversions of
representativeness, because he was individualised as a bodily presence through the
display, and simultaneously obliterated as a person by the racist notions of ethnicity
and race that motivated the display. Both “El Negro” and “the Hottentot Venus”
similarly indicate such structures by the very names given to them.
4.5
Representativeness: Two Perspectives
In order to see the full impact and role of representativeness, we must delve deeper
into the temporal perspectives it includes, because they make a practical difference
to the researcher’s or curator’s ethical thinking and choices. Before doing this,
however, we need to be clear that in most cases of contestation concerning research
on human remains, ethically relevant questions generally manifest themselves on at
least two different levels. On one level is the question about what one should do:
whether we are dealing with a proposed research project on human remains in a
collection, or a demand for reburial or repatriation of those remains, there is a basic
question about what is the best result. Allowing the research or not? Facilitating
reburial or not?
On another level, there is also the question of how to go about deciding what to
do. This is no less an ethical question than the previous one. As indicated by the
previous representativeness discussion, who is involved, who is given a say, and
who is allowed to decide are ethically highly charged issues. These issues concern
the process and not just the results. In this context, however, it is important to keep
in mind that limitations in both knowledge and resources normally necessitate some
degree of simplification. To return to the Schreiner collection as an example, most
of the ancient remains are classified as either Sami or Norse, and the final say on
research proposals is distributed accordingly (Lønning et al. 1998). Necessarily, the
historical realities from which the material stems are more complex than what such
an either/or division would seem to indicate. With a plethora of smaller and larger
populations moving, interacting, and assimilating into each other through the
centuries, it is utterly unlikely that the individuals whose remains are stored at the
Schreiner collection thought of themselves as simply “Norse”(/Norwegian) or
“Sami”. If we grant for the sake of argument that they did, they certainly did not do
so based on today’s definitions of the two groups. Allowing even this impossible
scenario, they certainly did not think of “Norse” or “Sami” as their single defining
characteristic. Not all simplification means a reduction in ethical quality, however,
66
H. J. Fossheim
as the legitimacy of our broad and absolute bifurcation into these two denominations does not simply rest on its ability to map onto historical or pre-historical
categories.
The insight that our categories of representation are inexact might easily lead one
to suppose that if proper representation were at all possible, it would consist in an
infinitely more intricate and complex network of definitions and roles than what the
current system allows. This thought, however, is a function of a particular perspective on the relationship between the remains and ourselves. According to this
perspective, the remains are ultimately what is to be represented correctly. The job
of posterity (us) is simply to take proper care that this is done. This perspective can
be summed up as follows.
Perspective A on representativeness The people whose remains are in question are
what must primarily be represented correctly.
There are ethically salient considerations that lead us in this direction of thought,
and they are not completely off the mark. But this perspective cannot be the only
relevant one, or even the most important one, in the sort of cases we are considering. Even if we do not consider the challenges posed by realities, such as limited
knowledge and even more limited resources, there is reason to look for an alternative. For as we have found, and tried to specify for research on human remains,
we have an irreducible and crucial responsibility towards the living.
What is then the alternative to Perspective A? If Perspective A sees events from
the vantage point of the remains’ origins, and judges our contemporary actions in
light of those origins, the alternative perspective would be to see events from the
vantage point of our current situation, and judge activities involving historical
remains from that point of view. Our contemporary institutions are set up partly to
ensure addressing and redressing mistakes, shortcomings, and injustice. Returning
to the Neiden events as our example, the Sami Parliament (created through an Act
by the Norwegian Parliament: Lov om Sametinget og andre samiske rettsforhold
1987) is such an institution, formed partly in recognition of past injustices carried
out against the Sami people by the Norwegian state. On a practical level, the
establishment marks the importance of addressing the acknowledged injustices and
avoiding new ones. The appropriate approach to deciding whether, and if so how, to
carry out research on a given set of remains is one that acknowledges today’s
people, places, and institutions. This perspective can be summed up as follows.
Perspective B on representativeness The present population is what must primarily
be represented correctly.
These outlines of Perspective A and Perspective B are not solely of academic
interest. The two perspectives can point in different directions as far as practical
solutions go, and they do so based on a difference in the direction of the ethical
considerations of each. While Perspective B places a highlight on the researcher’s
responsibility vis-à-vis living individuals, Perspective A focuses on the respect
owed to the people whose remains are in question. The two perspectives are in
practice irreducible to each other. Rarely if ever will the researcher’s ethical
4 Research on Human Remains …
67
responsibilities lie only with one of the two, but depending on the project, one or
the other will tend to overshadow the alternative perspective. In some cases (partly
exemplified in Sect. 4.4), where the individuals are known as those individuals,
Perspective A should get more of a priority. In most cases, however, where the
remains in question are ancient and/or individually unidentified and there are representatives among the living, we (wisely) tend to place more emphasis on
Perspective B than on Perspective A, to the extent that we have to prioritise. This is
partly because knowledge engenders responsibility, and so knowledge of what we
might call stark individuality generates a prima facie obligation to consider the
individual’s wishes and perspectives qua individual. For cases where little such
insight is available, the group or groups sharing central axes of identity through
relations of representativeness—who were anyway always ethically relevant—
come to the fore.
Ultimately, the two perspectives are not simply two directions of view—from
the past looking in the direction of the present (Perspective A), or from the present
looking in the direction of the past (Perspective B). Although direction of view in
this sense is attendant on each perspective, that is a consequence of priority. The
term ‘perspective’ denotes first and foremost what is given pride of place, what is
figuratively speaking placed in the foreground, thus taking on the greatest size and
most central position. Their respective functions imply that Perspective B (prioritising present populations) is inherently more ethically focused than Perspective A
(prioritising past populations). Ethics serves practical thinking, with a view to
acting in the world, and living people can (for better or worse) be acted upon in
more thoroughgoing and affecting ways than those who are no longer living. The
three research ethical principles mentioned initially—respect, good consequences,
and justice—also cater to this premise, in being first and foremost concerned with
subjects who are alive at the time of research. In line with this, the first principle is
partly founded on a notion of autonomy. All else being equal, the living are a more
central ethical concern than the dead.
There certainly is an ethical dimension to how we relate to those no longer living
also, as illustrated by our ethical intuitions concerning phenomena as different as
the handling of dead bodies or speaking ill of the dead. These are real issues
although the individual is no longer a thinking, acting, feeling person among us.
But for most scenarios, the issues are as it were shadows of the dilemmas arising
when we face the living. This state of affairs is, to a great extent (although not
entirely), explained by respect for the dead being a function of the fact that the dead
are considered through the attribute of having been alive. The dead are not simply
inanimate, but entities that used to be living. This ethically relevant fact is indicated
by the very word used for the objects in question: human remains. Today’s
archaeological objects are the remains of what used to be living beings. Logically
speaking, Perspective A to a great extent depends on the fact that Perspective B was
once available for the populations and individuals now reduced to human remains.
In this limited sense, at least, referring to human remains simply as “objects” can
also be problematical, to the extent that this is an expression that can tend to cover
up part of the remains’ ethical status.
68
4.6
H. J. Fossheim
A Question of Truth
Some might perceive a threat to truthfulness in Perspective B. If the two perspectives provide somewhat different answers to the same question, and we have
defined Perspective A as the historically most accurate one, does this mean that
Perspective B is less reliable? And if so, how can we base our ethical stance on it?
The best way to deflate this worry is to say that the two perspectives are not
meant to answer the same questions. Perspective A is meant primarily to answer
questions about historical accuracy. Perspective B is intended to help find viable
and fair solutions to current practical quandaries. What separates the two perspectives is thus partly a contrast between caring most of all for the past (A) and
caring most of all for the present (B), partly a contrast between a primarily
descriptive (A) and a more essentially normative (B) approach.
Three considerations seem to collectively resolve the reliability difficulty. First are
the theoretical and practical limitations mentioned above. We normally do not know
enough about details in the past and how they relate to the present to trace causal and
non-causal developments sufficiently closely for a complete development of
Perspective A; and even if we did possess all that knowledge, we would not have the
resources to set up a process for decision-making which takes it into full account.
Second, there is the clear ethical relevance of which personal and institutional
constellations are available in the present. Given the existence of a legitimate body,
like the Sami Parliament in the Neiden case, it would be illegitimate and unethical
to ignore that reality for some independent set of putatively more accurate computations. Many larger ethnic groups will have some representative organ, often on
a national level, although its form and basis of legitimacy is something that differs
from one constellation to the next. For this reason, it is impossible to frame ethical
guidelines on this point for all cases, except to say that the curator and researcher
have a responsibility to orient themselves concerning the existence, status, and
function of such groups when relevant. This responsibility will normally extend to
initiating dialogue where such relations do not already exist.
Third, as highlighted in the previous section, an overriding ethical concern and
responsibility is towards the living. Respect, beneficence, and justice are all primarily directed towards protecting persons as acting and suffering beings. On this
point too, the Neiden case provides ground for conferring with our ethical intuitions. The human remains represent individuals who were once there, and this fact
places demands on how to treat those remains. Ethically, however, through the six
dimensions spelled out earlier, the human remains also represent persons now
living, and this is an irreducible part of their status. Both the individuals who were
once living and the individuals who are now living are to be accorded respect, but
primacy goes to the living. This is due not only to the fact that the living can be hurt
in more ways than the dead, but because respect is tied to autonomy, something
only the living possess. The representativeness of human remains thus provides an
indication of who among the living should be taken into ethical consideration for
any given case.
4 Research on Human Remains …
69
The original worry concerning the non-alignment of two perspectives was that
acting on the basis of Perspective B could mean taking leave of truth. I have
responded that the two perspectives have differing functions and indicated that the
question is thus wrongly posed. A lingering worry might be that Perspective B leads
to subjectivism and thus to relativism. Perspective B amounts to subjectivism,
however, only if the sole criteria for being part of the group represented are subjective ones. In the Neiden case, this would amount to a status as Sami (and thus a
right to vote at, run for office with, or be taken into account by the Sami Parliament)
being exclusively a matter of personal tastes and opinions. In such a world, the
criteria for representation on the side of those whose human remains are in question
would be void of all inter-subjectively controlled criteria.
What is lacking in such a world is the establishment of Perspective A’s epistemic
criteria aligned with Perspective B as a control function on its ethical force. While
Perspective B is the ethically salient one, such criteria provide what we might call
an epistemic tempering of its claims in the form of necessary requirements. Ethics is
not free-floating but supervenes on matters of fact. As exemplified by the workings
of the Sami Parliament in Norway, this means that membership in the Sami caucus
requires the fulfilment of objective as well as subjective criteria. The Sami Legal
Act (Lov om Sametinget og andre samiske rettsforhold 1987, Sects. 2–6; cf.
Sellevold 2011) thus states that voting is open to those who declare that they see
themselves as Sami (subjective criterion) and have a further specified continuity
relation to Sami language or Parliament (objective criterion). When no such relation
can be agreed on, the case lacks Perspective B as an epistemic control function (for
one such problematic case, see Payne 2012).
4.7
Co-creating Identities
The conclusions concerning perspectives A and B (outlined in Sect. 4.5) illustrates
that, for questions of representativeness, ensuring legitimate practices requires
defining who forms part of the group. Like any act of naming someone, the identification of a group is often performed to an important extent from the outside (a
welcome reminder of this fact, against sometimes overly constructivist and
self-determining interpretations, is Wimmer 2013). In contemporary studies, populations are normally defined by the researcher, sometimes on the basis of half-baked
notions of ethnicity that combine cultural and biological factors. The ethical
dimensions of relations between researchers and groups are affected by the historical
dimension of those same relationships. And this is where it also becomes relevant that
history is the sourcebook of prejudice. History is what makes us see groups as groups.
And that history is not over, as today’s actions and choices are parts of a process
stretching into the future as well as the past. If history is what makes us see groups as
groups, that history is an ongoing process. The research thus becomes part of a
group’s co-defining history. The fact that science has been a central instrument in
70
H. J. Fossheim
defining and controlling groups is also what makes it pertinent to speak of a historically shaped ethical responsibility on the part of science.5
Research in these cases is never a disinterested mirroring of unquestionable
reality. To the extent that it is not self-evident to someone whether they do belong
to the group, who else belongs to the group, or what are the criteria for belonging to
the group, the research actually contributes towards determining who belongs to the
group and what are the criteria for doing so. It thus becomes a moot point who
should represent the group in question because of one of two factors, sometimes in
combination: (1) disagreement or lack of clarity about who belongs to the group,
and (2) disagreement or lack of clarity about what mechanisms should be in place to
ensure that the group is represented in a way that is fair to all members of the
group. One might very well disagree about the latter even if there is total agreement
on the former, for instance if all agree which ethnic group is represented by a set of
remains, but not all agree on how to find out what the people in that group think
should be done (e.g. sending out individual questionnaires? Approaching a chosen
body claiming to represent the group?), or what it would take to include the group
sufficiently in the process (e.g. only include their responses in a broader process?
Let them have final word?).
Such questions are to a great extent about issues of legitimacy. Legitimacy is not
simply a function of contentedness, but is co-determined by the decisions having
been made in the right way with a view to due process and proper information to all
parties involved (see Sect. 4.5 for further details). In cases where the group is not
beforehand unambiguously defined, legitimacy therefore hinges on making the
right decisions about the relevant membership or mechanisms, as indicated above.
This is perhaps especially the case if the researchers bring to the table a (partial) first
order determination (which individuals are included) or second order determination
(what are the criteria for inclusion). Whilst the researchers are responsible for
ensuring Perspective B representativeness, it would at the same time be unethical of
them to simply employ their own determination of the group in question.
It can seem as if the ethical demand is to do the impossible: ensuring a fair and
reasonable inclusion without unduly affecting the outcome. Again, on a more
practical level, however, the closest we normally get to the ideal is demanding
relevant historical knowledge on the part of the researcher or curator. They have a
responsibility to be responsible, which means being knowledgeable about the situation and framework, well beyond the technicalities that inform much contemporary research. Naturally, this is not the same as avoiding all prejudice, but it is an
irreducible part of reducing poor judgement and bad agency. The researcher or
curator is responsible for possessing insight into the cultural and historical conditions of the living population in question. In some cases, this will also include
educating oneself on who can reasonably be said to represent whom among both
public and privately initiated organisations and interest groups.
5
The mechanism of such a specifically historical responsibility is surprisingly elusive as seen from
the vantage point of contemporary ethical theory. I pursue its details in Fossheim (2018).
4 Research on Human Remains …
4.8
71
Conclusion
Within the complex matrix of ethical considerations affecting archaeology and other
disciplines involved in the handling of human remains, the notion that human
remains represent stands out as having serious implications for research. Such
representation reminds us of the ethical relevance of the group level of identities, in
the European framework actualised not least in terms of ethnicity. In line with basic
research ethical principles, it is the wellbeing of those now living, which forms the
most central consideration in such questions of representativeness. Where there are
continuities between previous populations and identifiable groups of today,
knowledge of such representativeness is necessary for acting ethically and for
reaching legitimate solutions.
Acknowledgements For their constructive comments on previous versions of this chapter, I am
grateful to participants at the Twentieth Century Histories of Knowledge About Human Variation
research group workshop, Max Planck Institute of Berlin; the Race, Ethnicity, Ancestry, and
Human Genetic Variation NTM workshop, Oslo; the 12th World Congress of Bioethics, Mexico
City; and the Rethinking Sami Cultures in Museums conference, University of Oslo. Thanks to the
editors of this volume for their conscientious and constructive feedback. Finally, a special thanks
to Jon Kyllingstad and Ageliki Lefkaditou for their detailed and helpful comments on earlier
versions of the text. The Research Council of Norway funded this research through the Cultural
Conditions Underlying Social Change program (SAMKUL; project no.: 220741/F10).
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