The ethnographic authority interpellated. Contemporary tensions on text (s) of otherness

• Main Author: María Macarena Ossola
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pontificia Universidad Javeriana 2013-06-01
• Series: Universitas Humanística
• Subjects: Ethnography; Reflexivity; Writing
• Online Access: http://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/index.php/univhumanistica/article/view/5964

This article reflects on the new challenges that faces ethnography as writing regime aboutotherness. First of all the field work, conducted in two social spaces in the province ofSalta (Argentina), is described: a state university and an indigenous community. Then anevent that occurred in 2011 is narrated, in which one of the subjects that participated inthe study questions the author’s written production, that he did not agree with what isstated in a publication derived from the research. Lastly, it is porposes to take criticism asa turning point to think within the ethnographic work and reflect on the ways that keep the“ethnographic authority” in a context where literacy and writing synthesize the historicalstruggles of certain groups to distance themselves from the voices that others have imposed.