Yanomami: the fierce controversy and what we might learn from it

Robert Borofsky (2004)

University of California Press

ISBN: 0520244044 (paperback) £12.95

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Few books in Anthropology have had as much influence as Napoleon A. Chagnon’s Yanomami: the fierce people. Arguably the best-known ethnography ever, this illustrated account of the time he spent studying and living with Yanomami, an Amerindian people from area between the Orinoco River of Venezuela and the Rio Negro of Brazil, has been a course classic ever since its first publication in 1968. It must have influenced hundreds of budding anthropologists and is still to be found on many a Social Anthroplogy reading list.

Yanomami: the fierce people other popular books, such as Yanomano: the last days of Eden (1992), the more academic The Yanomamo (1996) helped establish Chagnon as one of the pioneers in the field of human behavioural ecology. This, and an output of more than 300 academic papers, have assured Chagnon such a prominent place in modern social anthropology that at least one Mid-Western department has included him in a course on how the personality of key individuals can influence on the course of an academic discipline.

He seemed to be firmly established in the pantheon of Anthropology’s Great and Good, until 2000 when investigative journalist Patrick Tierney published Darkness in El Dorado, a controversial book which included interviews that called into question the ethical basis of some of the key foci of Chagnon’s field work, including the geneaologies of the members of the villages he had visited or lived in. Taken in order to understand both migration patterns and kinship and marriage rules, Tierney not alleged that the ways in which the information had been extracted violated the code of conduct of the American Anthropological Association, but questioned the accuracy of his interpretations of the data he collected. In particular it accused him of faking some key footage on which he had based many of his conclusions relating to the aggressive nature of tribal societies.  Tierney also accused geneticist James Neel of grave professional misconduct while gathering Yanomai blood and tissue samples. Tuerney believed both Chagnon and Neel lacked objectivity and of manipulated a vulnerable people to advance their own careers.

The result was a debate that went to the very heart of anthropology, an reexamination of the always difficult question of the role of the observer and the difficulties of maintaining impartiality in the face of the culture being studied and under the pressures of the anthropologist’s own academic culture. The American Anthropological Association convened a special Darkness in El Dorado task force and the subject was also investigated by the National Academy of Sciences, the American Society of Human Genetics, and the International Genetic Epidemiological Society.

Now that the dust has (mostly) settled, Robert Barofsky, a member of the Anthropology faculty at the University of Hawaii, has provided in Yanomami: the fierce controversy and what we can learn from it a summary of the debates, the pros and the cons, and partisan nature of the disputing camps. Clear, concise and very well done, it should serve as a model for anthropological teaching for many years to come. Facts and events and opinions are presented in their social and historical contexts, beliefs and field methods analysed with the understanding that both have changed in the 35+ years since Chagnon first published his researches. Barofsky is supported by five other anthropological colleagues who provide chapter-length discussions of their particular takes on the situation. The 11 chapters provide a masterful summary of the Tierney and Chagnon’s positions, and lays out with great clarify the academic and intellectual landscape in which the debate took place. Clearly intended as a study guide to the controversy, the text is prefaced by a series of explanatory notes to both teachers and students as well as an extensive list of reference materials. It then moves on to an in-text round table discussion that seeks not so much to apportion blame and point the finger as to clarify what happened and then understand why it was so. A model treatment of an ethically thorny and historically complex subject, the book itself is further clarified by an appendix where the positions of the various round-table participants are laid-out.

Though obviously intended to promote discussion in introductory anthropology courses, the fierce controversy has wider resonances and, consequently, thoroughly merits a wider audience. The mixture of individual drive and institutional stodginess, of strong passions and weak governance, of careerism combined with compassion, of a just-cause belief so strong that rule bending becomes justified, have all occurred many times in other fields of scientific endeavor (most recently in human stem cell research). But in the case of the Yanomami, because the subjects are whole people and their society, the empathy is stronger and the moral and ethical questions and dilemmas can be easily grasped. It is neither hard to imagine being Yanomami dealing with strangers in your midst - balancing hospitality with a protection of the scared; nor difficult to put yourself in the field boots of the various outsiders involved – with curiosity and career warring internally with polite neutrality. So, the fierce controversy may also be read a remarkable piece of reverse anthropology, where a specific group of indigenous people ends up telling members of the Science Tribe in general an illuminating (and not necessarily very comfortable) morality tale about themselves and their own cultural practices.

No hypocrite, Borofsky has put any profits from the book to aiding medical care among the Yanomami. He has also set www.publicaanthropology.org, a web-site for public discussion of ethics in anthropological practices.

Adrian A. Barnett

Roehampton University