Against Translation: The Role of the Researcher in the Production of Ethnographic Knowledge

Between Boundary-Work and Cosmopolitan Aspirations

“…There is no better way to learn about the sociohistorical and intellectual conditions in which EASA emerged than reading the accounts on the state of anthropology during the 1980s by some of its founders. In Anthropology and Anthropologists, Kuper (1983: 192) observed an increasing weakening and 'parochialism' of the 'British School', while social anthropology expanded and institutionalised in other European countries -including in those where their established 'traditions of ethnology had stagnated' (Kuper 1996: 191-193), such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Norway (Eriksen 2008;Kuper 1973: 229) and Sweden (Hannerz 1982), and furthermore in Southern European countries (Comas d'Argemir and Prat 1996;Pina Cabral 1992), where 'new departments of social anthropology were established in the 1970s and 1980s, often by scholars who had been trained in Paris, Britain and the United States' (Kuper 1996: 192). Despite the development of social anthropology in these countries -as also observed by Archetti (2003: 103) and Kuper (1989) -there were no learned societies or associations for social anthropologists there.…”

De deux modalités de comparaison en anthropologie sociale

“…Evans-Pritchard décrit lui-même la démarche frontale comme une « traduction » culturelle et c'est la démarche latérale qui est, pour lui, assimilable à la méthode comparative. Pour mon propos, l'analogie avec la traduction linguistique (voir Ingold 1993 ;Pina Cabral 1992 ;Asad 1986) soulève des questions qui nous lancent sur une fausse piste. Toutefois, cette perspective est un bon outil pour diagnostiquer la persistance de la distinction entre comparaisons frontale et latérale en anthropologie.…”

“There is Something”: Charlie Galibert’s Corsica

“…"There is Something": Charlie Galibert's Corsica. Anthropological Quarterly 87: 525-540. positionality and a conjunction of perspectives has often been described as the quintessential anthropological move (Geertz 1988, Pina Cabral 1992. Even in the Corsican context, some form of double vision has in fact been the norm in recent nonfiction accounts of Corsica (cf.…”