The Reverse "Other": Ethnography, Power Relations and Truth Production Processes

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Edilson Márcio Almeida da
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Silva, Emanuel Freitas da
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Mediações - Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/mediacoes/article/view/46584
• topic: ethnography; power relations; otherness; difference; truth-producing processes; etnografia; relações de poder; alteridade; diferença; processos de produção da verdade; etnografía; relaciones de poder; alteridad; diferencia; proceso de producción de la verdad

Of the image of the field researcher as endowed with extraordinary empathy for the natives, Clifford Geertz stated that the relationship between the anthropologist and the studied people is inevitably asymmetric since the two parties come to meet with different origins, expectations, and purposes. Based on this assumption, the article discusses the mutual efforts of utilitarian appropriation that, eventually, ethnographers and natives undertake among themselves. To this end, itresumes reminiscences ofresearch conducted among charismatic Catholics, pointing out how their representatives sought to impose meanings on ethnographic work and, consequently, exercise some controlover their results. Before, however, it goes through historical landmarks of ethnographic research and discusses the controversial research techniques employed by anthropologist Marcel Griaule to obtain absolute control over his informants during the ethnographic process of truth production.