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From Car to House (Del coche a la casa)
Author(s) -
Gudeman Stephen,
Rivera Alberto
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1995.97.2.02a00040
Subject(s) - ethnography , sociology , participant observation , field (mathematics) , aesthetics , anthropology , epistemology , visual arts , art , philosophy , mathematics , pure mathematics
Joint fieldwork has led the authors to question several accepted ideas of ethnographic method and theory. According to traditional wisdom, the fieldworker is a solitary figure who, acting as participant and observer, strives to overcome a gap of knowledge between her world and that of others; ethnographies are compilations, translations, and interpretations of knowable facts. In contrast to this construction, the authors' collaboration suggests that in fieldwork the anthropologist creates a community of inquiry. This community includes voices from the field, from home, from the past, and from joint workers; the ethnographer participates in many‐stranded conversations and contexts of learning. Ethnographies are not objective reports or displays of new methodologies but the products of artisans who draw on the skills and imaginations of many. like good conversations and culture itself, ethnographies are never complete.