Great inquiry/provocation and ensuing discussion.
This may or may not be of interest, but I am including/sharing a piece by
Kim TallBear who currently works in the Canadian context and writes about
"Standing with" vs "Giving back" in the communities involved in her
research and methods of community-based participatory research.
On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 11:16 AM Rafique Wassan <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Hi anthro friends,
>
> Inspiring debate, just add to the discussion my engaged research work on
> Sufi heritage in Sindh region in Pakistan, I attend Sufi festivals and work
> with the participants attending these festivals I feel easy with the word
> participants and don't use 'informants'.
>
> regards,
>
> Rafique
> Walter Benjamin Kolleg
> Graduate School of Humanities
> University of Bern
> Switzerland
>
> ________________________________
> From: The Anthropology-Matters forum mailing list <
> [log in to unmask]> on behalf of Stuart Wright <
> [log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 3:51 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: the problematic term: informant
>
> Dear all,
>
> Interesting discussion. For what it’s worth, a couple of sentences from my
> recent thesis methodology: “I have generally avoided the word ‘informant’
> simply because of its unsettling connotations of espionage. Instead, I use
> the term ‘respondent’ to refer to all interviewees whose interviews were
> ultimately translated and transcribed in a numbered transcript; more
> broadly, I use the term ‘interlocutors’ to refer to all interview
> respondents as well as participants of relatively informal and unstructured
> ‘conversations’ recorded in fieldnotes”. My fieldwork was done in northeast
> Tibet, hence thinking in terms of ‘informants’ seemed extremely
> problematic. Not that I was openly discussing ‘respondents’ either, but I
> am often surprised when researchers working in the same context refer to
> their ‘informants’ without any apparent hesitation.
>
> ‘Partners’ seems like such a horrible alternative – such a buzzword in
> NGOs and CSR departments etc.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Stuart
>
>
> --------------------
> Stuart J. Wright
> School of East Asian Studies (SEAS)
> University of Sheffield, UK
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 5 Mar 2019, at 05:45, Michele Feder-Nadoff <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Colleagues,
> >
> > Please send me any of your ideas, opinions, links to articles regarding
> the term “informant” and possible alternate terms.
> >
> > This term points to all the colonial history and ethical problems (in
> anthropology) and guides us to act as spies in our research ethnography.
> >
> > Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions.
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Michele
> >
> >
> > Michele A. Feder-Nadoff, Ph.D.
> >
> > "Se hace camino al andar.” Antonio Machado
> >
> > Artista-Antropóloga
> > Poland 48 796 722 920
> > Mexico 52 55 5139 3764
> >
> > www.michelefeder-nadoff.com<http://www.michelefeder-nadoff.com> <
> http://www.michelefeder-nadoff.com/>
> >
> >
> http://www.oarplatform.com/un-finishing-research-towards-an-anthropology-of-making-and-perhaps-un-making/
> <
> http://www.oarplatform.com/un-finishing-research-towards-an-anthropology-of-making-and-perhaps-un-making/
> >
> >
> > https://colmich.academia.edu/MFederNadoff <
> https://colmich.academia.edu/MFederNadoff>
> >
> >
> http://neotericart.com/2018/02/21/tunneling-towards-light-interview-michele-feder-nadoff-david-richards/
> <
> http://neotericart.com/2018/02/21/tunneling-towards-light-interview-michele-feder-nadoff-david-richards/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > *************************************************************
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--
-------------------------------------------
Ellen K Foster, PhD
Science and Technology Studies
Postdoctoral Researcher
Engineering Education Dept., Purdue University
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