TY - JOUR
T1 - Trouble in para-sites: deference and influence in the ethnography of epistemic elites
AU - Gilbert, Paul
N1 - This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedited version of an article published in Anthropology in Action. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Gilbert, Paul (2015) Trouble in para-sites: deference and influence in the ethnography of epistemic elites, Anthropology in Action, 22(3), 52-62 is available online at: http://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/aia/22/3/aia220307.xml?
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - 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 paper 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.
AB - 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 paper 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.
U2 - 10.3167/aia.2015.220307
DO - 10.3167/aia.2015.220307
M3 - Article
SN - 0967-201X
VL - 22
SP - 52
EP - 62
JO - Anthropology in Action
JF - Anthropology in Action
IS - 3
ER -