As I become aware of announcements of events that are related to Patrick Tierney's book Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon they will post them here. If you have or know about an event that you think should be posted here, please contact me.

• April 5-7, 2002 Amazon Tragedy: Yanomami Voices, Academic Controversy and the Ethics of Research, A Conference at Cornell University
  • The publication in 2000 of Patrick Tierney's controversial book, "Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon," unleashed an intense debate in academic circles around issues of research ethics, anthropological misrepresentations and misplaced scientific reductionism. The book examined severe impacts on Amazonian indigenous peoples, principally the Yanomami, from biological and social scientific research, exploitative filmmaking, and attempts to take over native lands and resources, with the collaboration of anthropologists, from the 1960s down to the present. It described questionable methodology in the research, films and writings of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, as well as his collaboration with the late geneticist James Neel. The wide range of incidents, attitudes and impacts reported by Tierney and others with knowledge of the Yanomami case has been sufficiently well supported by abundant evidence to generate an explosive debate within the discipline of anthropology, with general implications for all research on human subjects. The firestorm of controversy around the approaches and conduct of researchers in the field reported in Tierney's book has involved dozens of scholars, from many different disciplines and points of view. Scathing and sympathetic reviews of the book have generated intense contention and led to forums of scholars, activists and other interested parties. Missing from the debate, however, have been the voices of the Indigenous peoples affected by the horrendous practices described in the book and confirmed by numerous observers: above all, the Yanomami themselves.
  • This unique and timely conference, to be held at Cornell University on April 5 - 7, 2002, will bring to the United States several Yanomami representatives from Brazil and Venezuela, who will respond to the heated debate and provide their perspectives on the nature and effects of scientific research upon their peoples. Among them will be Davi Kopenawa, an internationally renowned Brazilian Yanomami spokesman, and José Seripino, a prominent Venezuelan Yanomami leader. This will be a historic occasion: the first meeting of Yanomami leaders from the Brazilian and Venezuelan sides of the international frontier. High on their agenda will be demands for just compensation to their communities for blood and other biological samples collected by researchers and preserved in U.S. laboratories without their informed consent, and/or for the return of these samples for culturally appropriate burial. Representatives of Native North American communities will also be in attendance to share their experiences of repatriation and of learning to regulate research for the benefit of their own communities.
  • The conference is intended as a teaching project that will include substantial numbers of undergraduate and graduate students in an intensive exposure to an actual ongoing case, in which issues of research ethics can be explored at first hand. The conference is a collaborative project of: the Latin American Studies Program of Cornell University; the Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Pittsburgh; the Cornell American Indian Program; the Department of Anthropology of Cornell University; and the Cornell Department of Plant Biology.
  • Main issues raised:
    • Informed consent. A large number of biological samples, including blood, hair, skin, and other materials, were collected from Yanomami people. They were given pots and pans, machetes, etc. for their samples and were told that these would lead to medical benefits for them, which was not true. Thirty-five years later, the Yanomami have been traumatized to learn that these "remains" of their dead relatives have been preserved in the U.S. and continue to be used in scientific experiments and sold or turned over to, among others, the Human Genome Diversity Project.
    • The disruption of the civil and religious life of Indigenous communities by scientific research. In the Yanomami case reported by Tierney, intrusion by anthropologists and other scientists led to severe disturbances of the social and cultural life of an indigenous people in the early stages of contact with Western Civilization. The representations and interpretations of the Yanomami by anthropologists in the media directly affected the tribe's ability to pursue their cultural and economic life.
    • Responses and approaches by Indigenous community representatives who challenge the passive role of "research subject" for themselves and seek to incorporate research methodologies that are appropriate for their peoples and environs.
    • Issues, questions and potential approaches for researchers who would investigate Native peoples. Definitions and discussions on the current state of ethical discourse on research on human subjects, in light of the questions raised by the "Darkness in El Dorado" controversy.
    • Repatriation and/or compensation for biological specimens collected without informed consent
    • Cooperation between indigenous communities, governmental bureaus and NGOs in instituting public health, medical assistance and educational programs
    • Community control of research and permission for researchers; reciprocal benefits to communities from researchers
    • Ethical responsibilities of anthropological representation

• March 9 & 23, and April 6, 2001 The University of Michigan Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History is sponsering a three part colloquium series, "Science -- Ethics -- Power: Controversy Over the Production of Knowledge and Indigenous Peoples"
  • Participants include: Fernando Coronil (Anthropology & History), Alcida Ramos (Anthropology, U. of Brasilia; NGO Pro-Yanomami Commission, Brazil), Michael Kennedy (International Institute, Sociology), Conrad Kottak (Anthropology), David Pedersen (Anthropology & History), Terence Turner (Anthropology, Cornell), Joel Howell (History, Internal Medicine), Randolph Nesse (Psychiatry, Institute for Social Research), Kay Warren (Anthropology, Harvard), Caroline Jeannerat (Anthropology & History), Brian Ferguson (Anthropology, Rutgers), David William Cohen (Anthropology, History), Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa (U. of Hawai'i), and Jennifer Gaynor (Anthropology & History). For more information you can go to their website at http://www.umich.edu/~idpah.