Respect, Beneficence, and Justice for Persons

From that Belmont Report:

"The Hippocratic maxim 'do no harm' has long been a fundamental principle of medical ethics. Claude Bernard extended it to the realm of research, saying that one should not injure one person regardless of the benefits that might come to others."

The particulars are left to the physicians' (or researchers') "best judgments." But I think this outlines a pretty big dilemma: utilitarianism vs. "tyranny of the majority" (or, in a related problem, tyranny of the lab scientists (has anyone reading this seen Muppets From Space?)) would be one way of characterizing it. The question that it leads to for me is this: can suffering be quantified?

I don't know if this is going to be relevant for my research (I hope not).
The main issue is probably going to be one of privacy.

There seems to be a correlation between vegetarianism (let's classify veganism as a type of vegetarianism), organic food, and squatting. One source here, another here. I would speculate that this has something to do with squatting emphasizing the values of self-reliance and sustainability. Obviously, this is inconclusive, but as Jessica pointed out in response to my post Wednesday last week, the process of formulating a research question isn't simply linear: sometimes it goes quote backwards end quote. So, from this "intended result," I'll ask (VERY preliminarily):
Is there a correlation between vegetarianism, organic agriculture, and urban agriculture, [...] and squatting culture (which has been pretty well established (see paper) as existing), and if so, why? That is, is it more a manifestation of values or ideals, or is it mainly pragmatic?

I'm waiting for a bunch of books to arrive at the library which should help me clarify what I mean by culture. The definition of organic can really vary from place to place, but in this case I really mean food production that bypasses all industrial processes (now define industrial...). My definition of urban agriculture would be food that is grown within the city on a small scale (so what is "small"?).

My research methods will probably include a lot of participation and informal observation of squats and their food chains; especially how food is integrated into everyday life.

Privacy could become an issue if I want to refer to people I observe or quote them. In this case I'll have to ensure their anonymity, which may involve a cumbersome amount of regulation. We'll see...more thoughts on this to come.

...containers

The general topic that Cassie, Fiona, and I are working with at present is something like "how is anti-consumerism (we still have to define this) a cultural (we could probably afford to clarify this as well) movement (why the hell not...)?" We're each planning to pursue different foci within this broad shape. My focus will probably have something to do with food.









This picture (credit to Joel Heller) was taken at a table at De Peper, an organic, vegan restaurant at overtoom 301, "a legalised squat with a large performance/rehearsal space, cinema, and gallery with an inspired programme of [sub]cultural activities," according to the De Peper website. What makes this squat a gathering point for all of these cultural (and culinary) activities? I'm going to go out on a limb (following a prudent period of fasting, of course) and try to connect this to de Certeau, by suggesting that this squatting/DIY culture is related to an attempt to restore "habitable" spaces and create new "narratives." That is, it tries to resist enumeration (or regular arrangement) and, you know, to make places more "believable."







<- images credit to Annie Wu

Our synecdoche is the building housing De Peper and this cinema/performance space/gallery; since it collects all of these things, it is a synecdoche for whatever movement might be characterized by them.