[PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION TO AVOID SUBJUGATING "OTHER" ETHICS]

When we want to implant efficient, lasting healthcare programmes in order to improve the health conditions of a population, we have to be able to distance ourselves from our own conceptions of what is ethical or not, good or bad, better or worse. In fact, these notions can be conceived differently according to the sociocultural context. Thus, international aid has taught us how harmful it can be to impose changes which, a priori, may go against "other" ethics. The imbalances and misunderstandings that result always jeopardise the success of programmes which, otherwise, might have been accepted and even taken over by the populations concerned. Therefore the theoretical and methodological approaches of anthropology can contribute significantly to having certain programmes proposed which respect both so-called 'universal' values and the values of local populations who could benefit from them. In this article, by examining the history of the theoretical and methodological developments of participant observation, we will see how it could constitute an initiatory praxis to ethics in general and culturally enrich certain principles advocated by biomedical ethics. By enabling semantic bridges from one culture to another, and vice versa, this classic approach of anthropology makes it possible to integrate into the ways of implanting healthcare projects the manner in which a population perceives its own systems of reference and values. From the scientific point of view, it is essential to develop approaches which avoid having "other". ethics subjugated to Western concepts. Research on ethnomedicines could therefore contribute to their being taken into account in projects aiming at the common good.