That’s enough about ethnography! An education of attention as purpose of anthropology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1981-2582.2016.3.21690Keywords:
Correspondence. Education. Ethnography. Fieldwork. Method. Observant participation. Theory.Abstract
In anthropology and other disciplines, “ethnography” has become so over-used a term that it has lost much of its meaning. It is argued that attributing “ethnography” to encounters with those among whom the research is done – and field work in general – is to jeopardize the ontological commitment and educational purpose of anthropology as a discipline, as well as its main way of working, participant observation. It also means reproducing a pernicious distinction between hose with whom one studies and learns in and out of academia, respectively. It is this obsession of anthropology with ethnography that has, more than anything else, undermined its public voice. To recover it, one must reaffirm its value as a future-oriented discipline, dedicated to reshaping the rupture between imagination and real life.
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