Ethics, Consent & Accountability (curranthro-transparency-and-data)
At CA, "transparency" is not primarily a reproducibility package — it is research ethics and
accountability toward the people and communities anthropologists work with. The single most important
rule: protecting people can override sharing data. Because Major Articles receive the CA✩
Treatment, an unresolved ethics problem will be exposed to international, signed Comment — design
ethics in from the start (run this skill early and before submission). CA also requires assignment of
copyright to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for major articles, reports, forums, discussion items, and
commentaries — factor that into any data/material reuse plan.
When to trigger
- Planning consent, anonymization, and accountability into a project (do this early)
- Working with vulnerable, criminalized, Indigenous, or displaced communities
- Handling human remains, sacred objects, genetic/biological samples, or cultural heritage
- Deciding what materials, transcripts, images, or data can — and cannot — be shared
- Preparing the manuscript's ethics statement and handling the Wenner-Gren copyright assignment
Ethics core (anchor every decision here)
-
Do no harm. Anticipate harm to interlocutors and communities — reputational, legal, physical,
cultural — and design to prevent it. When sharing would endanger people, do not share.
-
Informed consent is ongoing, not a one-time signature: people understand what participation and
publication mean, and can withdraw. For media, consent covers that use of that image/recording.
-
Be open and honest about your role, funders, and purposes with those you study and with readers.
-
Weigh competing obligations transparently — to people studied, to scholarship, to communities,
and to the discipline — and explain how you resolved conflicts.
Anonymization & protection of interlocutors
- Anonymize people and often places (pseudonyms, composite or masked details) where exposure could cause
harm; state your anonymization strategy and its limits.
- For vulnerable or criminalized communities, treat confidentiality as protective, not optional;
consider not collecting or not retaining data that could be subpoenaed or leaked.
- Images: blur/withhold identifiers per consent; some images should not be published at all
(see
curranthro-tables-figures).
Heritage, repatriation & biological materials
-
Cultural heritage & sacred objects: respect community authority; some knowledge/objects should not
be reproduced or published. Follow NAGPRA and relevant national/Indigenous protocols.
-
Human remains & repatriation: document provenance and descendant-community consent; align with
repatriation obligations; do not present ancestral remains as ungoverned data.
-
Genetic / biological data: community consent (incl. group-level harms), benefit-sharing where
appropriate; deposit only where consent and protocols permit.
Data sharing & copyright (open-but-careful)
- Share what you ethically can (codebooks, non-sensitive materials, analysis details for quantitative
subfields) and document why sensitive data are withheld, with an access/contact path where
appropriate. Follow any UChicago Press / Editorial Manager data-availability prompt at upload.
- For biological/archaeological quantitative work, normal reproducibility hygiene applies: documented
procedures, pinned versions, seeds — subject to the ethics constraints above. Sharing never trumps
consent or community harm.
-
Wenner-Gren copyright: CA requires assigning copyright to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for the main
article types; ensure you hold the rights you assign (especially for co-held community materials,
archival images, and others' media) before signing.
Anti-patterns
- Treating ethics as IRB paperwork done once, not an ongoing relationship of care
- Publishing identifiable details/images that endanger interlocutors to look more transparent
- Reproducing sacred/heritage materials or ancestral remains against community wishes
- Extractive research: taking knowledge/samples with no consent, benefit, or accountability
- A "view from nowhere" that hides funders, role, or competing obligations
- Assigning Wenner-Gren copyright over materials you do not actually have the right to license
Output format
【Ethics core】do-no-harm / consent / honesty / competing-obligations addressed? [Y/N]
【Consent】ongoing + covers publication & media use? [Y/N]
【Anonymization】strategy + limits stated; vulnerable interlocutors protected? [Y/N]
【Heritage/remains/biological】provenance + community authority + repatriation respected? [Y/N/NA]
【Data sharing】what is shared / what is ethically withheld + why
【Copyright】Wenner-Gren assignment rights confirmed for all included materials? [Y/N]
【Next】curranthro-review-process
Supplementary resources
