This paper attempts to contextualize the renewed vigor with which ethical codes have been discussed in anthropology in the 1990s. It outlines, with four historical sketches set in chronological order, different ways in which morals have been conceptualized and institutionalized in anthropology. It argues that the history of professional anthropology has been marked by a tension between an Occidental discourse on ethical duplicity and a more specifically anthropological epistemology of double identities. This has led to a situation of moral duplexity: an unintentional use of “double standards” in professional practice. An examination of the different ways in which this tension has worked out in different periods of the history of the discipline will show that the institutionalization of anthropological morals in the form of a code of ethical conduct is not only a very recent but—in terms of professional aims—a fairly unusual strategy. The emphasis now seems to lie on negotiation with the people studied as well as the sponsors of anthropological research, and this move may make the institutionalization of anthropological morals in an ethical code obsolete.
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