Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
theoretical posture toward exploring a culture or problem may determine that
professional's status and rank in the field. This influence may pose a prob-
lem when the dominant mode of inquiry is at odds with the perspective of
the ethnographer or participant. Similar pressures arise with funding. To
secure funding, the scholar must establish a link between a personal research
interest and the sponsor's focus. Given a finite amount of resources, a suc-
cessful grantsperson learns how to define the investigation and specify the
research design to win funding. This task often requires some intellectual
dexterity, reshaping the focus of inquiry and substituting one unit of analy-
sis for another in writing for different grants.
Academics must be entrepreneurial, enterprising, and independent in the
pursuit of knowledge. Ideally, this knowledge will serve the highest purposes—
enhancing individual and social enlightenment, self-awareness, and under-
standing. The academic, however, can become lost along the way. Scholarly
research can become an arcane and antediluvian pursuit.
Relevance is always an issue in the ivory tower. Internal pressures produce
much work that the public has labeled out of touch, inbred, and part of a self-
perpetuating system. (See Jacoby, 2000, for a fascinating discussion on this
topic.) The relevance of scholarly efforts must always come under question.
Every research effort must have some bearing on the development of knowl-
edge and in some way contribute to the social good.
Habermas's (1968, p. 314) conclusion that “knowledge and interest are
one” compels researchers to ask why and for whom they are conducting
research. Everyone has a vested interest in the outcomes of a particular
research endeavor. Researchers need to be aware of their own vested interest
and their role in relation to the maelstrom of vested interests operating in any
given study. This issue should not paralyze a researcher, but it should influence
the research design and serve as a check on conclusions.
Academic ethnographers conduct their research in the most scholarly and
ethical manner possible, as do most researchers. Real-world constraints, how-
ever, do affect their research. The myth of the ivory tower has led many to
believe that academic anthropologists are immune from outside influences. In
fact, they are no more or less immune than are applied ethnographers from the
influence and constraints of vested interests.
Applied Ethnographers
The ethical dilemmas that applied ethnographers confront grow out of the con-
text in which they work. A discussion about a few of the most significant types
of applied ethnographers provides some clues about the type of ethical decisions
each must make. The key to understanding the differences between ethnographic
