A Royal Commission investigating a major scandal comprehensively discredits the report of a consultant who appears before it. The consultant's professional association later appoints her to its ethics committee, and gets her to run a key session on training and professionalism at its annual conference.
Confronted with criticism of this curious appointment, the vice-president of the association reminds members that the ethics committee was set up "to engage with important contemporary issues and challenges and to make sure our code and practice are maintained at the highest standards".
It sounds like something out of former Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen's administration in the late 1980s. But unfortunately, it is the present-day story of my own profession of anthropology.
For a couple of decades the signs of decay have been there -- strong attacks on the notions of objectivity and scientific truth; anthropologists calling on each other to champion the "values and aspirations" of radical minorities, and to promote Aboriginal interests "at Aboriginal directive"; serious suggestions that anthropologists might follow common Mafia practice by keeping two sets of records, a genuine set of research data which would be concealed, and a doctored set that could be made available to the courts or other authorities.
This sorry state of affairs culminated in the Hindmarsh Island Bridge scandal in South Australia during the mid-1990s. At the apparent behest of a coalition of environmentalists, unionists and wealthy landowners, a group of Ngarrindjeri claimed that a bridge would desecrate their "secret women's business".
This was backed by a number of anthropologists, including Dr Deane Fergie from the University of Adelaide, who wrote a report arguing that "women's business" around Hindmarsh Island was "crucial for the reproduction of the Ngarrindjeri people".
After another group of fourteen respected Ngarrindjeri women publicly stated that the whole thing was a hoax to stop the bridge being built, the state government set up a Royal Commission. The commission found the "women's business" story was a cynical fabrication from beginning to end, and was very critical of the anthropologists who had supported the claims, singling out Dr Fergie for particular comment.
Fergie had happily used the major study of the Ngarrindjeri by the late Ronald and Catherine Berndt, two of the nation's most experienced field anthropologists, to help her arguments. But the Berndts had specifically stated that traditional Ngarrindjeri culture was unusual because there was no secret women's business. This essential fact was completely absent from Fergie's report.
The response of the anthropology profession showed a total lack of understanding of the way that public confidence in its work might be restored. As well as making Dr Fergie a star performer on its ethics committee, the Australian Anthropological Association and leading anthropologists denounced those few of their of their colleagues who had publicly stated that "secret women's business" was bogus.
The profession also mobilised to undermine the Royal Commission's findings. Assisted by a number of other prominent anthropologists, Professor Diane Bell recently published a massive book titled Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin, which claims that the Royal Commission's conclusions were wrong and unjust.
Of course, no Royal Commission's findings should be treated as sacrosanct. But those who wish to dispute such findings should first clearly explain why they were reached, and then demonstrate why they are wrong. Bell didn't bother. Neither did any other anthropologist.
Indeed, Bell's book shows that she has fully mastered the increasingly popular anthropological technique of simply ignoring crucial information that might undermine one's argument. For instance, it does not mention that engineering works which would be just as desecrating to the supposed "women's business" as any bridge have gone ahead in the Hindmarsh Island bridge corridor without a hint of opposition from a single Ngarrindjeri.
One of these, the 1996 construction of a marina for a wealthy white anti-bridge land owner, required substantial excavation and pile driving, and was specifically approved by a key Ngarrindjeri proponent of "women's business". According to Bell's book, this same Ngarrindjeri woman had been hospitalised some years previously because of the "spiritual wounding" she suffered when survey pegs for the proposed bridge were driven into the "sacred land" near the bridge site.
After Quadrant magazine recently published a paper of mine detailing some of the numerous strategic omissions and misrepresentations in Bell's book, the journalist Ben Hills decided to do some research on the general state of anthropology. His unflattering article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald last Saturday, and the Courier-Mail published a shorter version last Wednesday.
Hills quoted Dr Les Hiatt, one of our most distinguished scholars, lamenting the "crisis of credibility" that Australian anthropology currently faces. But instead of trying to address the malaise that is damaging the profession, anthropologists went on the attack. Hills has been summoned to appear at a specially convened session at the Anthropology Society annual conference in Sydney next Monday, no doubt to be screamed at and given a lecture on ethics.
But not all anthropologists are dismayed by Hills' revelations. Some are positively delighted that the dirty linen is starting to come out in public. Dr Tim O'Meara, from the University of Melbourne, sent a response to the Herald which he also forwarded to me, congratulating Hills and recounting an appalling interview he recently had with a post-graduate student in anthropology from the University of Queensland.
According to O'Meara, the student said in a matter-of-fact manner, "that in his consulting work on Aboriginal land cases, he and his professional colleagues commonly fabricate and distort evidence and otherwise do whatever is necessary to ensure that their Aboriginal clients win". O'Meara added that in speaking so candidly, the student obviously assumed that as a professional anthropologist, he too would approve of such activity.
Anthropologists are no longer just ivory-tower academics studying kava drinking or initiation rites in tiny Pacific islands. Their work on indigenous land and heritage claims has important implications for the social and economic future of this country. We need to ensure that we keep the bastards honest.
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