Jean-Guy A. Gouletto experience life differently creates a context in which communica-
tion with deceased elders through dreams become a fact of life. Ec-
static moments experienced in the field become moments of personal
and professional transformation.
When leaving the world of Native North Americans to join fellow
professionals, the issue is twofold: First, to find the means of convey-
ing a sense of what it meant to really be there among Native North
Americans. Second, to begin to explore the larger anthropological
theoretical issues involved in accounting for reports of experiences
of communication with others in dreams. When we leave these con-
versations with fellow anthropologists to turn toward our hosts and
friends in aboriginal communities, we accept to journey more deeply
with them in their world. In the end, it is with them that ethical guide-
lines in the light of which to conduct one’s research must be gener-
ated and acted upon.
Notes
- I gratefully acknowledge financial support for my research among the Dene Tha be-
tween 1979 and 1985 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Can-
ada and Saint Paul University’s Canadian Research Centre for Anthropology, in Ottawa.
See Goulet 2004 b and Goulet and Harvey-Trigoso 2005 for description of recent develop-
ments among the Dene Tha of Chateh. - In Canada, the term aboriginal includes Indians or First Nations, Metis or Mixed
Blood, and Inuit (formerly known as Eskimos). In the 2001 national census, 976 , 305 re-
spondents identified themselves as North American Indian, 292 , 310 as Metis, and 45 , 007
as Inuit (Canada 2001 ). - The Tri-Council Policy Statement is available at http://www.ncehr-cnerh.org/English/code_
- The three councils are the Medical Research Council (mrc), the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council (nserc), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council (sshrc). See mrc,nserc, and sshrc 1998. The main criticism directed at the pol-
icy statement is that it has universities establish ethics review committees through which
“the university or granting agency passes on liability to the researchers and the research-
ers pass it on to their subjects” (Lambeck 2005 , 232 ). In Lambek’s view “this is not merely
non-ethical, but unethical.” On this and other related issues, see also van den Hoonaard
( 2002 ) and Gotlib ( 2005 ). - McNaughton and Rock submitted a first version of their paper, ‘‘Opportunities in
Aboriginal Research. Results of sshrc’s Dialogue on Research and Aboriginal Peoples,’’
in October 2003 to the sshrc’s board members and senior management. Their paper was
preceded by two other reports, one published online in 2002 , ‘‘sshrc Synthesis of Briefs
Received from the Fall, 2002 Consultation on Policy Directions Related to Aboriginal Peo-
ples’’ (L. Davis et al.) and the other, ‘‘sshrc’s Dialogue on Research and Aboriginal Peo-
ples: What Have We Heard on What Should Be Done?’’ published online in 2003. These