participant oBservation to avoid suBjugating “other”ethics

Abstract

When we want to implant efficient, lasting healthcare programmes in order toimprove the health conditions of a population, we have to be able to distanceourselves from our own conceptions of what is ethical or not, good or bad, betteror worse. in fact, these notions can be conceived differently according to thesociocultural context. thus, international aid has taught us how harmful it can beto impose changes which, a priori, may go against “other” ethics. theimbalances and misunderstandings that result always jeopardise the success ofprogrammes which, otherwise, might have been accepted and even taken over bythe populations concerned.therefore the theoretical and methodological approaches of anthropology cancontribute significantly to having certain programmes proposed which respectboth so-called ‘universal’ values and the values of local populations who couldbenefit from them. in this article, by examining the history of the theoretical andmethodological developments of participant observation, we will see how it couldconstitute an initiatory praxis to ethics in general and culturally enrich certainprinciples advocated by biomedical ethics. By enabling semantic bridges fromone culture to another, and vice versa, this classic approach of anthropologymakes it possible to integrate into the ways of implanting healthcare projects themanner in which a population perceives its own systems of reference and values.from the scientific point of view, it is essential to develop approaches whichavoid having “other” ethics subjugated to Western concepts. research onethnomedicines could therefore contribute to their being taken into account inprojects aiming at the common good.