Thomas F. O'Dea, the Harvard Values Project, and the Mormons: Early Lessons on Ethnography among the Literate

Human Organization, Winter 2006 by Bahr, Howard M

Early in 1950 project leaders were concerned that if Ramah Mormons learned that they themselves were the objects of study, they might react negatively, not only curtailing access to their own people, but becoming uncooperative and limiting use of the village as a staging area for work with the nearby Navajo, Zuni, and other groups. Project policy over the period that included O'Dea's fieldwork, as shown in correspondence between Kluckhohn, Vogt, Roberts, and others, tended toward secrecy, misdirection, and minimal disclosure. In part, a concern with "security" was motivated by a legitimate desire to protect the identities of informants. However, much of an apparent overconcern about members of the target communities learning what was really going on was based in fear that these small communities would, if informed, impede or prevent the necessary fieldwork.

In the present paper we draw upon O'Dea's field notes and Values Project correspondence to illustrate the project policies of information control, apparently designed to keep subjects ignorant of project aims, and some of the consequences of those policies. We contrast the tendency of Values Project leadership to practice tight information control and at least partial deception with Thomas O'Dea's experience showing that increased disclosure to his Mormon subjects increased their willingness to cooperate. At the end of his fieldwork, O'Dea concluded that project efforts at information control had been counter-productive.

Problems of Information Control, Values Project, 1949-1953

In the spring of 1950 the directors of the Values Project were challenged by the continuing problem of minimizing awareness among the people being studied of the real aims and products of the Comparative Values Project. They perceived potential problems of entráe and rapport among local populations already "saturated" with researchers. They were especially concerned about project-villager relations in the Mormon village of Ramah, where Harvard researchers had already maintained an often unexplained presence for many years.

Researchers had necessarily been visible, and occasionally obtrusive, in Ramah. Harvard's Ramah Project had been largely but not entirely focused on the Navajo population of the area. Mostly before, the Mormons had been background or context to the study of the nearby Navajo, and to a lesser extent, the Zuni. Now, the Mormons themselves were to be the objects of study, and there was concern that an already fragile rapport with the villagers-one researcher called it "rather hostile"-might collapse (Bensley 1950). The Mormon community was especially problematic because of its homogeneity and ecclesiatical organization. Researchers were unsure what might happen to their access if, for example, the local Mormon bishop became convinced that cooperation with researchers was not a good thing.

An indication of the challenges researchers encountered in Ramah appears in Evan Vogt's report of the positive reception he enjoyed among the former Texans at Fence Lake. He wrote that "We have experienced none of the inquisitions which take place regularly in...[the Mormon trader's] store in Ramah" (Vogt 1949).