TY - JOUR
T1 - Ethical dilemmas in ethnographic research on end-of-life care
AU - Lemos Dekker, Natashe
AU - Atikasari, Hanum
AU - Shawkat, Syeda Shajeela
AU - Samuels, Annemarie
N1 - Funding Information:
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 851437). We thank the editor of and the editors of this special issue for their helpful editorial guidance. We are grateful to Hansj\u00F6rg Dilger, the external ethics adviser of this research project, for his comments on an earlier version of the article and for sharing his advice regarding ethical issues with us throughout the project. Anthropology Today
Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 The Author(s). Anthropology Today published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Anthropological Institute.
PY - 2026/4/1
Y1 - 2026/4/1
N2 - Ethnographic research on end-of-life care raises ethical dilemmas that merit explicit discussion. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Brazil, India and Indonesia as part of a comparative research project, this article examines a recurring ethical problem: the sensitivity of sharing or withholding diagnostic and prognostic knowledge when death is near. Such dilemmas overlap with those faced more broadly in medical anthropology, but the stakes are heightened when research participants have little time left and the researcher's decisions may affect how that time is spent. The article reflects on three fieldwork encounters in which researchers faced these tensions in different circumstances, and argues for the value of collective, team-based ethical deliberation before, during and after fieldwork. Open discussion of ethical dilemmas can help ethnographers of death and dying reflect on, decide on and sometimes simply sit with the challenges they encounter.
AB - Ethnographic research on end-of-life care raises ethical dilemmas that merit explicit discussion. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Brazil, India and Indonesia as part of a comparative research project, this article examines a recurring ethical problem: the sensitivity of sharing or withholding diagnostic and prognostic knowledge when death is near. Such dilemmas overlap with those faced more broadly in medical anthropology, but the stakes are heightened when research participants have little time left and the researcher's decisions may affect how that time is spent. The article reflects on three fieldwork encounters in which researchers faced these tensions in different circumstances, and argues for the value of collective, team-based ethical deliberation before, during and after fieldwork. Open discussion of ethical dilemmas can help ethnographers of death and dying reflect on, decide on and sometimes simply sit with the challenges they encounter.
U2 - 10.1111/1467-8322.70060
DO - 10.1111/1467-8322.70060
M3 - Article
SN - 0268-540X
VL - 42
SP - 23
EP - 25
JO - Anthropology Today
JF - Anthropology Today
IS - 2
ER -