Today’s podcast is based upon J. P. Linstroth’s encyclopedia entry, “Field Research” (2008, 2012). It should be known today that all field researchers must be aware of their role in the field and of their effects on their subjects in both informal and formal contexts. Therefore, reflexivity is an important aspect of the researcher's work. Field research is guided by past experience and informed by the mistakes of previous research when ethical guidelines were not as strict-for example, in U.S. the Tuskegee Syphilis Project, in which unnecessary harm was caused when the treatment for syphilis was withheld from study participants even when penicillin became available; the U.S. Department of Defense's Project Camelot, a U.S Army program that was designed to evaluate the causes of warfare, but in actuality was used to undermine revolutionary movements in places like Latin America; psychologist Stanley Milgram's studies of behavioral aspects of authority and obedience, studies that were highly controversial because of the ethical concerns raised by his use of deception in experiments using electric shock; or even the most recent controversy involving anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and geneticist James Neel about the Yanomami peoples of Brazil and Venezuela. Ethics review boards of universities, especially those in the United States, were created to guarantee against unwarranted deception and to ensure informed consent as well as the privacy and confidentiality of the study participants (as appropriate). Such ethical requirements for the study of human subjects involve the respect for all persons and their well-being and provide a framework for moral standards to follow during field research.

The purpose of this essay, “The Mayan People and Sandy (Shelton) Davis: Memories of an Engaged Anthropologist”, by J. P. Linstroth is to honour my late friend, anthropologist, Sandy (Shelton) Davis (1942-2010). The article will highlight the activism of Shelton Davis and his involvement with the Mayan people during the 1980s. Of particular importance is the portrayal of an immigration hearing of nine Kanjobal Maya defendants in 1983 and the circumstances surrounding the problems of immigration in the state of Florida at that time. The article also explores how Shelton Davis helped save a village of Kaqchikel Maya in the Department of Chimaltenango, Guatemala. Of importance is how to represent varying narratives from three close colleagues of Shelton Davis to an overall conceptualization of the epistemology of narrative formulations. One finds that dispersed memories and aspects of synchronic trauma provide some avenues of forming a picture about Davis’ activism with the Mayan people. Likewise, it is significant to realize that histories and memories are not confined to specific structural agencies but rather may be regarded as multi-faceted expressions of pastness through an individual’s memories and narratives.

This article, “History, Tradition, and Memory among the Basques” by J. P. Linstroth explores the historical commemoration, the Alarde of the Spanish-Basque town of Hondarribia re-enacted for almost 400 years. It is a social account of the past portrayed through a history of local militarism and a history of commemorative performance. Since 1996, controversy has divided local inhabitants concerning wider female-inclusion in the male-dominated event, separating the town into factions, traditionalists (asserting traditions remain the same) and feminists (advocating broader female involvement).Theoretical concerns include examining traditions and their gradual transformations over time, rather than as episodic change; that interpreting the past can be competitive over rights of belonging; that history may be influenced by different agencies of gender, kin ties, memory, politics, and social experience; that people do not purposefully ignore the passage of time but may be protecting communal harmony; that commemorative rites are more than embodied performances; and that history can be a multiple, contested, and lived experience. Today, as of 2026, the Alarde controversy in Hondarribia continues and there are two parades held there every September 8th, one for so-called “traditionalists” and another held on the same day for those supporting the “feminist cause”.