Abstract

MARRERO GUILLAMON, ISAAC. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS: COMMITMENT IN ETHNOGRAPHY. Rev. colomb. antropol. [online]. 2008, vol.44, n.1, pp.95-122. ISSN 0486-6525.

¿How can we defend today that ethnography's main task is to get closer to reality? ¿How can a postructuralist conscience be combined with an attempt to describe and explain a world "out there"? ¿What is the significance of an anthropology that does not aspire to transform reality? These are some of the questions addressed in this article, drawing on the naturalism-realism debate proposed by Manuel Delgado (2003) in this journal. A return to a "primitive naturalism" is countered with a "realist" ethnography: flatter (which recognizes each object's singularity and is interested in its relations) and more opaque (which does not aspire to transparency and recognizes texts as mediation).

Keywords : Ethnography; postructuralist; reality; political compromise; naturalism; realism.

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