What are the issues for the AAA in this statement regarding Western legal tradition?

Question

Thus, the AAA founds its approach on anthropological principles of respect for concrete human differences, both collective and individual, rather than the abstract legal uniformity of Western tradition.

Answer 1

wha??

Answer 2

My anthropology professors told us it had to do with two things.  First was the fact that a lot of the early research into different cultures used to be done by Christian missionaries that talked a lot about saving the heathens.  Some of the textbooks and ethnography we studied were from that era.  We had to learn cultural relativity.  On the other end of that is the fact that foreign cultures have different moral and legal beliefs that may clash with our own.  For example, it could be a serious moral dilemma for many Western anthropologists today to do fieldwork in a society that stones women for suspected adultery.  The question for the anthropologist then becomes what to do about that situation.  Generally, my professors advised excusing oneself from participation, explaining that it makes you uncomfortable to your informants if necessary, but not trying to stop them.  This could be because it may prove dangerous to try tin intervene but it certainly infringes upon the rights of the culture in question to practice the ways they believe are right without outsiders imposing their own moral judgments.  The AAA guideline is trying to say that anthropologists are sometimes placed in environments that may condone acts which are considered horrid in Western traditions but it is not the job of the anthropologist (and in fact runs counter to the principles of anthropology) to force change upon a culture based on your own moral judgments.  This gets back to the issue of the missionaries.  As disgusting as it can be to read some of that literature, trying to change a native/foreign practice that makes you uncomfortable is no different than what those missionaries that wrote such blatantly hateful and disrespectful accounts of the natives did.  It is not our job as anthropologists to force different cultures to conform to Western legal traditions.

edit to respond: It is not always like what the AAA says.  A lot of anthropologists work for human rights advocacy groups.  The AAA guideline, in my opinion and from the explanations of my professors, is extreme in order to counter extreme feelings in the other direction.  The AAA says it is not the job of an ethnographer to intervene in any circumstance lest they violate the culture's rights and because some anthropologists are overly idealistic and jump into any cause, even something as simple as the killing of dogs in Korea for food.  Of course this is an ethical dilemma and not pretty either way one chooses to act but each situation and each anthropologist has to make that call with their purpose and their principles and their situation.  I think every anthropologist would protest the killing of a person for reasons their culture would consider heinous.  I may not have chosen the best example but I'm at a loss for another that is as clear in explaining the excerpt.  You seem very critical of anthropologists and I don't think it is entirely justified.  Anthropology is complicated.  Anthropologists find themselves in situations where our morals may clash strongly with those of the culture over a variety of issues and there may be no good solution.  There is not even a line to walk between bad and worse.  An anthropologist that does not work for a human rights group cannot go to do fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and refuse to wear local clothing (particularly the women), protest every 'unjust' punishment (including the death penalty for a variety of things western cultures consider acceptable or of minor issue), and expect to learn anything of use to their employers who may be diplomats or human rights workers or economic developers trying to change these practices with as little conflict as possible.  It is a huge moral dilemma and if you aren't cut out to make a decision at some point in your career where the only choices are bad and worse, you are right to switch your major.  An individual anthropologist may never find themselves in such a situation where the stakes are as high as a person being seriously injured or killed but if they do foreign fieldwork at all, they will probably find lesser dilemmas.  The lesser dilemmas are more easily put aside but you can't ever know when you will find yourself with a major moral dilemma.  As I said, I think anthropologists in a position to stop a murder would act but that opportunity isn't always present.  It could be your life or the Saudi g*y man's.  Your safety and your comrades' safety or the life of one young Pakistani woman.  It's not as clear cut as it may seem from a text book in a classroom in the US.  You wanted to know what the statement means but can you step back and consider the possibilities and complications and see the vast grey area?  Do you throw away an entire research project in the first week because you don't think dogs have any place on the dinner platter?  How about a culture that encourages young children to drink alcohol so excessively that they hallucinate?  Anthropology is a great big game of Devil's Advocate, a field where people witness 'bad' things and don't know how to react, a long journey of millions of miles walked in thousands of pairs of shoes.  There is a reason most anthropologists seem a little crazy.  I've yet to meet one that I would call sane and this is a big part of the reason.