Dear all anthro enthusiasts and friends,
thank you very much for your very interesting discussion…Thank you, Robin, for your amazing website! It is really appreciated! I will forward it to my academic/development networks, if it is ok with you, so that they can join the conversation as well. I find the choices of “respondent” and “gate-keeper” quite fitting, indeed! I have also often felt that the term “informant” is a bit out of research context and can imply other meanings. I am a fieldworker in the Amazon Basin and have always used the term “teacher” instead. After all, aren’t we the disciples of cultures we are trying to document?
Warmly,
Charitini
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Dr. Charitini Karadamou
University of Zurich, Institute of Anatomy. Postdoc researcher in Amazonian Anthropological Linguistics & Medical Anthropology,
member and co-founder of a Transdisciplinary Research for Development team
SNSF Research for Development (R4D) Project title: ‘Intercultural transdisciplinarity in Guatemala and Peru: A
North-South-South learning platform for culturally pertinent public health provision systems for indigenous populations’
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Previously:
University of Bern, Department of General Linguistics. Doctoral researcher in Amazonian Linguistics and Research Associate under
the SNSF scientific project 'Islands in an ocean of (poly)synthesis and concatenative morphology’ (2012-2016)
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> On 5 Mar 2019, at 17:24, Robin Thiers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> Dear all,
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> Interesting and important discussion indeed.
>
> Similar questions surround the way we not only "write about", but in general "engage with" collaborators, assistants, gate-keepers, guides, friends, translators, fixers, etc. during fieldwork. Despite being of central importance in academic knowledge production, such collaborations often (surely not always!) receive but scant attention.
>
> Those interested in these discussions, may want to have a look at "(Silent) Voices". We are a collective of researchers from the field of development and (post-)conflict studies working in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe who strive for an open dialogue on the practice of transnational collaboration in academic field research.
>
> We are fully aware we're not the only ones struggling with these questions, and happy to have others join our conversation! If you're interested, feel free to have a look at the website: https://www.gicnetwork.be/silent-voices-about/ or the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Silent-Voices-from-the-Field-2020805891289548/
>
> All best,
> Robin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Anthropology-Matters forum mailing list <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Stuart Wright
> Sent: dinsdag 5 maart 2019 16:51
> 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.
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> ‘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]
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>> 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.
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>> 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.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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