Sneaky Kid and Its Aftermath: Ethics and Intimacy in Fieldwork

by Harry F. Wolcott

Brad―a schizophrenic school dropout and 'sneaky kid'―first appeared as a squatter near Harry Wolcott's forest home. He becomes Wolcott's subject in a long-term life history on how the educational system can fail students. Wolcott's trilogy of articles based on their years of interviews were well-received...until he admitted to an intimate relationship with the young man who, two years after leaving his shack, returned and attempted to murder the anthropologist. The Brad Trilogy then became the focus of heated academic discussions of research ethics, validity, intimacy, and the limitations of qualitative research. Here, Wolcott presents the full story of the Sneaky Kid and the firestorm it caused. Written in Wolcott's masterful style, the case offers an ideal starting point for discussing the complex public and personal dimensions of qualitative research with students. Included as an Appendix is the complete script of Johnny Saldana's ethnodrama recounting the story in play form.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Harry F. Wolcott taught at the University of Oregon, serving on both the faculties of education and anthropology. He authored several ethnographic texts that included his experiences among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia and with the African Beer Gardens of Bulawayo, Rhodesia, as well on ethnographic method and on writing itself, with a focus on qualitative research.

Reviews

[John Bailey Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

an extremely insane book

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never read a book like. It is the first one in which I have known the main character personally very well. The main character is Harry Wolcott, famed ethnographer, founder and editor of the journal Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and my instructor in a graduate class on qualitative methods in education at Arizona State University in 1980. Just months before Harry came to teach the course at ASU he was walking around the 20 acres where he had a house in Oregon and found a 20 year old kid named Brad living in a shack the kid had built on his property. Harry befriended the kid and helped him get by. At the same time Harry got a government grant to write an ethnography about "adequacy" in education, so Harry figured, why not use this homeless kid as his case study subject. At this time Harry had been living with his partner, Norman, for 10 years or so in Oregon. So Harry starts working with the kid and falls in love with him and they have a sexual relationship. It goes on for a year or so and in between Harry comes down to ASU to warn us, his students, about the dangers of "going native" in ethnographic research. And much more, including how Brad returns to burn down Harry's house in Oregon