Abstract

VIEGAS, Susana de Matos  and  MAPRIL, José. Mutuality and ethnographic knowledge. Etnográfica [online]. 2012, vol.16, n.3, pp.513-524. ISSN 0873-6561.

It is commonly recognized that for anthropologists it is challenging to explain for an audience of scholars how the redirection of analysis occurs during fieldwork. Contrary to the idea that this reorientation results from a kind of transcendental principle where the unexpected is marginal, in this article, that launches this dossier, we contradict that idea of transcendence, calling attention to the processual and intersubjective nature of anthropological epistemologies - the fact that ethnography is constituted in relationships. Mutuality is here discussed as a conceptual tool that describes the specificity of those relationships - namely, the “shared revelation” - in the making of ethnographical knowledge.

Keywords : intersubjectivity; mutuality; ethnography in anthropology; epistemology.

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