Captured by the Natives’ Predicament: Confronting the dynamic complexities of the field site

GONZÁLEZ, HEBE; GONZÁLEZ, M. ALFREDO

Halifax, Canada

Congreso; Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA); 2003

Dalhousie University

The literature and subsequent debate on the role of "native// anthropologists has centered in the advantages and problems of studying one´s own cultural group. In it, shared ethnicity is the core assumption and the ability of the ethnographer to transform it into a research tool is seen as its main benefit (Jones 1970; Aguilar, 1981; Harrison, 1991). The authors of this paper are an anthropological linguist and an urban anthropologist. To a great extent for us, studying the homeless or the Tapiete means to study ourselves.  Our fates are not separate from our natives like were those of anthropologist in the recent past. Yet, we are not recognized by our natives as one of them. In this presentation, we would like to stress the idea that the borderline that separated us from our natives was a conceptual error because in a globalized world the fates of native and anthropologist are tied together.