Barbara and class,
You make some very valid and insightful points about ethical considerations regarding cultural issues and differences. Valatka (2019) considers cultural understanding as a philosophical issue based on economics, cognitive, social, political, religious, geographic, linguistic, and educational differences. All of those factors play a part in an interviewee’s biographic make-up, and should be explored by using a philosophical component in order to “reflect various sides, angles, and aspects of diverse phenomena, processes”, and “actions” (Valatka, 2019, p. 5). Simply stated, a practitioner or evaluator may need to research different cultural aspects of the interviewee in order to attain a more accurate perspective of the interviewee. An example I can provide would be, while working as an analyst in Afghanistan, sometimes, Afghani squabbles were regarding water rights, a geographic territorial issue, and not so much linguistic, political, tribal or religious issues, although those four components were used to reinforce water rights. Water issues in the Middle East and Central Eurasia, and in many parts of the world, are very much so an issue, and although often overlooked in differences and disputes, should not be because water is necessary to sustain life. What we would do in my field would be emphasize similarities, while de-emphasizing differences as it pertained to mediating or resolving conflicts and to enhance further understanding. What are your thoughts on this, and is there anything you may add?
