110. Who observes the observers? Following anthropologists through society
Amanda Domingues, Cornell University; Clarissa Reche, State University of Campinas;
Inspired by Narahara and Tavares' (2022) special issue, we invite submissions that reflect on what happens when the 'anthropologist' becomes the object of analysis of the anthropological gaze. We want to pay attention to the process of 'purification' of ethnographic data; that is, what anthropologists decide to crystallize in the anthropological text and what they choose to hide. What kind of anthropological knowledge are anthropologists creating when certain fieldwork experiences are being excluded from their range of possibilities of formal academic expression? What to do with different kinds of issues – gender, race, class, disabilities, and others – that produce and/or expose their vulnerabilities as researchers?
It is only by inverting the direction of the anthropological gaze – from the 'native' to the anthropologist – that we are able to reveal the problems and possibilities of exposing, in their scientific work, researchers' bodies and their situated knowledge.
We welcome papers that focus on the work of anthropologists and address topics such as: the tensions between researchers' positionalities and the structure of academia; vulnerabilities experienced during fieldwork and the (im)possibility of expressing such vulnerabilities in the ethnographic text; the act of "cleansing" experiences that engage the researcher's sensoriality; the ways in which the bodies of anthropologists matter (or not) for the formulation of anthropological theories; among other topics.
Narahara, K. L., & Tavares, I. do N. (2022). Apresentação do Dossiê – Quando o 'Outro' é o antropólogo: Reflexões sobre produções etnográficas contemporâneas. Mediações - Revista de Ciências Sociais, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.5433/2176-6665.2022v27n3e46766
