s stricken by AIDS are much the same as traditional ethnographies, for they seek to help explain the customs, beliefs, behaviors, history and cultural institutions of a group of natives.
But ethnographic methods can also be used with communities suffering through the AIDS pandemic in ways that reflect the newer, more egalitarian relationship between researcher and subject. Anthropology as practiced in the 21st century must always contain a quid pro quo for the subjects, for any lesser relationship could be considered to be unethical. The anthropologist takes something from her or his subjects û the intimate knowledge of their world û and through the process of ethnography gives away those secrets, letting other people paw over what was once private. This is sometimes beneficial to the subjects simply by itself (in terms of increased tourist trade, perhaps, or because an oppressed minority finally has a chance to put forth their side of an historical or political event). But more often the people who are ethnographified receive no direct benefit from it, except what the ethnographer can bring to them. To a community suffering from AIDS, many forms of exchange would be welcome (Clifford and Marcus, 1986, p. 12).
Background to the Ethnographic Enterprise
Ethnology is simply one of the four subdivisions of anthropology û the othersÆ being physical anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics. Ethnology, typically practiced by socio-cultural anthropologists and more often called cultural anthropology in the United States (ethnology is a term more British than American, and within the United States more northern and eastern than western), is concerned with the study of cultures in their traditional forms and in their adaptations to changing conditions in the modern world. As such, ethnological or cultural anthropological means of research and cultural discourse are perfectly appropriate (and even ideal) for examining the ways in wh...