Commenting a post on Visual Anthropology of Japan blog

People Watching And New Student Watching is a blog-post containing an issue that has come up in the Visual Anthropology of Japan class rather often, that is taking photos of people in public. In the American Anthropological Association Code of Ethics, used here as a basic example of ethics that an anthropologist should observe, one speaks about ensuring that the conducted "research does not harm the safety, dignity, or privacy of the people with whom they work, conduct research, or perform other professional activities". On top of that the anthropologist has to determine " in advance whether their hosts/providers of information wish to remain anonymous or receive recognition, and make every effort to comply with those wishes". The problem with codes like the AAA Code of Ethics is that it does not really focus on the ethics of visual or any other type of anthropology as a separate discipline. Like said in the Visual Anthropology of Japan blog article, one is not always able to ask for a permission and even in the case of being granted one, there is no way of ensuring that whatever visual evidence you take is of any scientific value as you have interfered with the natural flow of events. As for anonymousness of the subject and also coming back to the ethics of "taking photos of people in public" mentioned in the blog, do visual anthropologists really take "pictures of people"? Or are they taking visual records of human behaviour, cultural and social development in public spaces? Everyone has the right to refuse a picture and when doing fieldwork one should be prepared and accept that but all in all the public space is called public for a reason. The issue one should be addressing at this point is whether one is taking pictures of people or doing research.