Abstract

SCHIAVONI, Gabriela. Material ethnography: from the observation of techniques to the technique of observation. Etnográfica [online]. 2023, vol.27, n.2, pp.473-491.  Epub Aug 22, 2023. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.13961.

Our article develops a materialistic conception of ethnography, equating research operations and technical activities studied by anthropology in pre-machinist societies. The reasoning draws on the French tradition started by Mauss and continued by his disciples Leroi-Gourhan and Haudricourt. The argument oscillates between the methodological texts of ethnography and the substantive study of the techniques carried out by anthropology. The emphasis on the physical dimensions of technical objects connects the anthropology of technique with current approaches, such as Ingold’s perspective of inhabiting and multispecies ethnography, not focused on the subject and its representations. Our work inserts into this plot the understanding of ethnography, distancing it from methodological disquisitions and avoiding at the same time considering it an art dependent on non-formulable capacities.

Keywords : multispecies ethnography; manual techniques; materialism.

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