SEM and AAA statements

Both the American Anthropological Associations (AAA) and Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) statements serve as ethical standards guidelines for researchers in those fields. The AAA's statement details seven principles:
1) Do no harm,
2) Be open and honest regarding your work,
3) Obtain informed consent and necessary permissions,
4) Weigh competing ethical obligations due collaborators and affected parties,
5) Make your results accessible,
6) Protect and preserve your records,
7) Maintain respectful and ethical professional relationships.

I won't get into the SEM's statement since it's so brief. However, it may be worth noting that the majority of the this statement is centered on field research ethics.

Here's Ben's questions for these two readings: What do you think about the two statements? Why? In light of the SEM and AAA positions on ethics, discuss the actions of the two key Taiwanese ethnomusicologist (i.e. Hsu and Wu) discussed in Guy’s article “Trafficking in Taiwan Aboriginal Voices.”

Though a sort of restatement of Ben's first question, I want to also ask if there is anything you disagree with in either statement or thought deserved more attention, and do you think anything should be added?

Here's my response:

I did not find anything I disagreed with in either statement. They center around themes of acting within the interlocutors and their cultures' best interests and continually maintaining high standards of honesty, respect, communication, and awareness for what can go wrong, which all sound fine to me for ensuring proper ethical conduct. However, I feel like the AAA statement should have had more direct discussion on the importance of being knowledgable of copyright and ownership laws, especially when considering the complex issues that arise with the distribution of often sensitive research material.

From my first read of Guy's article, I got the impression that Wu let his greed get in the way of acting ethically. Him selling the rights to use his samples to various popular artists certainly didn't help his case. This violates all sorts of ethical standards, such as those regarding honesty and establishing common ground with interlocutors on how collected data will/may be distributed. Even if we are to give Wu the benefit of the doubt and say making and selling a CD of Amis music was intended to be an effort to teach others about the Amis, and making money was an unavoidable consequence of that, Wu is still guilty of not meeting certain standards from both statements. He failed to be sensitive to the Kuos' culture and values as they indicated by the Kuos feeling cheated by Wu and noting his failure to adhere to the local custom of treating them to a meal. Wu also failed to clearly disclose to the Kuos how he was going to redistribute his collected data.

As for Hsu, I feel like one of his main problems was a lack of communication. We can look to his failure to keep an open discussion with the Kuo's on the redistribution of their recorded voice as an example. Hsu could have prevented a lot of his problems if he kept an ongoing discussion or had an earlier laid out discussion with the Kuos on how their voice recordings were to be used and distributed and how they may be used in the future. One of the Kuos' bigger issues with their voices in Enigma's song was that they received no credit. I'm not sure if the Kuos assumed they would receive credit, since it can seem like it's a sort of given, but matters concerning how they would/should be credited should have been settled between Hsu and the Kuos before or during Enigma's deal with Maison des Cultures du Monde. That sort of agreement on giving credit could have been passed on to the Maison des Cultures and then to Enigma. However, whether or not Enigma would have acted differently and given the Kuos and Amis people credit with all of this is speculative, but at least Hsu would have taken more measures in regards to trying to ensure giving credit where it is due. Another problem of Hsu's could be an ignorance of copyright and ownership laws. Such knowledge could have helped Hsu with his dealings with the Maison des Cultures du Monde.