ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains how important it is to reflect on "comfort zones", their dangers, and the paradigms, patterns, and habits that become second-nature, at times so much so that they are to the detriment of the practitioner and the people or places s/he studies. The American Anthropological Association (AAA) Task Force for Comprehensive Ethics Review had predecessors. The AAA has had principles and statements on ethics, and even resolutions on ethics, at various points in its long history. The book describes the matter of range. Anthropologists have long noticed many of the difficult questions that arise when they do research in the field. The range of issues that the Task Force contemplated is large and greatly exceeds the issue of anthropologists' responsibilities to the people whose lives they research or among whom they conduct short-term or long-term fieldwork.
