“Casement by all accounts would have made a marvellous ethnographer”: Roger Casement’s use of ethnographic methods to advance the human rights of Indigenous peoples: A study focussed on the context of the Putumayo investigation

This article addresses Roger Casement’s use of ethnographic fieldwork during his investigation in the Putumayo region of the Upper Amazon. It explores three interpretations of Casement’s humanitarianism: emotional, colonial, and as indicative of a lifelong commitment to Indigenous rights. The article examines his accounts of advocacy for Indigenous Amazonians, including practical aid, the amplification of their voices and support for armed resistance, and concludes that these demonstrate a commitment to Indigenous rights. Casement’s fieldwork methodology is explored in terms of his effective use of the ethnographic methods of the time and his anticipation of Spradley’s mid-twentieth-century ethnographic approaches. Casement’s statement of his methodology, thorough descriptions, intensive interviews, external corroboration, and maintenance of a fieldwork journal can all be compared with Spradley’s interpretation of ethnography. These interpretations are reinforced by Casement’s interviews with Barbadian overseers, in which he overcomes barriers of ethnicity and class, demonstrating both skilled ethnographic fieldwork and a non-racist approach. His investigation and ethnographic writing meet the twin purposes of ethnography: furthering our understanding of the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and serving the interests of humankind by exposing the crimes against humanity in the Putumayo.