Beyond ethical imperatives in South African anthropology: morally repugnant and unlikeable subjects

Abstract

In this article, I argue that anthropologists' dislike of their subjects in the field poses both epistemological and ethical questions that go beyond concerns about harming or exploiting those we study, about maintaining human relationships, or about the self-reflexivity and competence of individual anthropologists. While dislike threatens the very basis of our claims to know and to engage in proper ethical relationships with those we study, I argue that acknowledged and interrogated, dislike need not prevent research among ‘unlikeable’ or morally ‘repugnant’ Others. Indeed, as South African anthropologists move away from theoretical concerns with structure, the question of dislike could become more common.

Keywords:

• South African anthropology
• fieldwork methodology
• ethics
• moral repugnance
• self-reflexivity
• Christian Fundamentalism