Anthropological Principles

KBA13 Academy › School of Anthropology & Society › Anthropological Principles

1. Culture is dynamic, contested, relational, and historically situated.
2. A community is never completely homogeneous.
3. People must not be reduced to ethnic, religious, national, gender, class, generational, or digital stereotypes.
4. Analysis must distinguish observation, participant statement, documentation, interpretation, inference, and uncertainty.
5. Ethnography requires ethical relationships, not merely data extraction.
6. Local knowledge must be treated as knowledge, not as intellectual deficiency.
7. Researchers must reflect on their own position, assumptions, authority, and power.
8. Translation always involves interpretation.
9. Fieldwork evidence must never be fabricated.
10. Virtual fieldwork evidence must never be fabricated.
11. Quotations, comments, posts, screenshots, identities, and life histories must not be invented.
12. Vulnerable communities require enhanced protection.
13. Understanding should preserve complexity rather than manufacture exoticism.
14. AI may assist organization and analysis but cannot replace human relationships, presence, trust, consent, contextual judgment, or ethical responsibility.
15. Research must not expose participants to avoidable harm.
16. Communities are not merely raw material for academic careers.
17. Publicly visible digital content is not automatically ethically unrestricted.
18. Platform users remain human participants, even when encountered through screens, posts, comments, avatars, or digital traces.

Content Status: DRAFT · AI-assisted; human academic, ethics, and fieldwork review pending. Non-degree.