Anthropology, ethnography and processual approach of political activity

GAZTAÑAGA JULIETA

Congreso; 2013 IUAES Congress; 2013

IUAES

Often we refer to the anthropological aim of explaining social phenomena in-process and to ethnography as a distinctive mode of inquiry which enables a particular understanding of social processes. However, there seems to be a rather ambiguous lack of explicitation in what concerns to the role attributed to processes regarding anthropological and ethnographic endeavours. This paper seeks to explore these issues focusing on certain intersections and differentiations between the emerging nature of ethnography and the anthropological study of ongoing social process. In order to support the argument that both emergence and process are fundamental aspects of anthropological inquiry, I first retrieve to Max Gluckman's processual approach and his analytical and methodological efforts in order to understand social process. Secondly, I use my ethnographic research amongst politicians of Peronist party in Argentina in order to show that a processual approach is required in order to develop a non-instrumental but ethnographically oriented approach of political activity. By the end of the paper, I advance sort of hypothesis: that one common anthropological misinterpretation of the analytical value of process is connected with subsuming it into (mere) historical consideration.