Trouble in Para-sites

Deference and Influence in the Ethnography of Epistemic Elites

Datos Bibliográficos

ID18972707
AutoresP R Gilbert (0000-0002-1059-029X, University of Sussex, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen22
Número3
Fecha de publicación2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnthropology in Action (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0967-201X • E-ISSN: 1752-2285
EditorialBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/aia.2015.220307
OpenAlexW2315941607
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas34

Through his enduring efforts to interrogate the regulative ideals of fieldwork, George Marcus has empowered doctoral students in anthropology to rethink their ethnographic encounters in terms that reflect novel objects and contexts of inquiry. Marcus' work has culminated in a charter for ethnographic research among 'epistemic communities' that requires 'deferral' to these elite modes of knowing. For adherents to this programme of methodological reform, the deliberately staged 'para-site' – an opportunity for ethnographers and their 'epistemic partners' to reflect upon a shared intellectual purpose – is the signature fieldwork encounter. This article draws on doctoral research carried out among the overlapping epistemic communities that comprise London's market for mining finance, and reviews an attempt to carve out a para-site of my own. Troubled by this experience, and by the ascendant style of deferent anthropology, I think through possibilities for more critical ethnographic research among epistemic elites

Deference · Deferral · Elite · Epistemic community · Epistemology · Ethnography · Political science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Law · Philosophy · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies