Dear Michele,
Not certain if this takes your discussion in a slightly different way, however Evelyn Blackwood discusses the term 'friend' as a moniker for those we might also call 'informants' or indeed 'collaborators'.
Blackwood, Evelyn 1995. Falling in Love with An-other Lesbian: Reflections on Identity in Fieldwork. In: Don Kulick and Margaret Willson (eds.), Taboo: Sex, Identity and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork, pp 51-75. New York: Routledge Press.
All the best,
Jack
________________________________________
From: The Anthropology-Matters forum mailing list <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Michele Feder-Nadoff <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 05 March 2019 12:20
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: the problematic term: informant
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for your detailed reply. I am getting a number of emails and will try to put them together to share further out. These readings look great! It also seems that the question opens up to the many roles we play as ethnographers in the field and the many implications these various roles play.
best wishes,
Michele
Michele A. Feder-Nadoff, Ph.D.
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> On Mar 5, 2019, at 12:13 PM, Jonathan Skinner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> hi michele - I think its more complex than that reduction. a lot of anthros were anti-colonial in the past or had their work co-opted.
>
> In my case I was told I couldn't possibly be a british spy as my questions were too 'untrained'. I was also deliberately 'used' in the field as a conduit to present what local people wanted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to get an impression of as they knew they would read my work. A non-spy 'turned' so to speak?! Working in N Ireland - 'respondent' is a less loaded term than 'informant'?
>
> Jane Parish's work is interesting in Age of Anxiety - sadly "Mr Grey's" conspiracies about British geopolitics I wrote about there have largely come to fruition when I visited last in 2017. Pels on ethics is characteristically brilliant - most useful maybe (1999) Professions of Duplexity. A Prehistory of Ethical Codes in Anthropology, Current Anthropology 40/2: 101-136 (with CA comments and reply). I use that and these in ethics teaching:
>
> Fetterman, D. (1983) ‘Guilty knowledge, dirty hands and other ethical dilemmas: the hazards of contract research’, Human organization, 42:3, pp.214-224.
>
> Norris, C. (1993) ‘Some Ethical Considerations on Field-Work with the Police’ in, Hobbs D. & May, T. (eds) Interpreting the Field: Accounts of Ethnography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.122-144.
>
> me (2001) ‘Taking Conspiracy Seriously: Fantastic Narratives and Mr Grey the Pan-Afrikanist on Montserrat’ in, J. Parish and M. Parker (eds) The Age of Anxiety: Conspiracy Theory and the Human Sciences, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp.93-111.
>
>
> best
>
>
> jonathan
>
>
> Dr Jonathan Skinner
> Reader in Social Anthropology
>
> Room 1061
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>
>
> From: The Anthropology-Matters forum mailing list <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> on behalf of Michele Feder-Nadoff <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Sent: 05 March 2019 10:45
> To: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: the problematic term: informant
>
> 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
>
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