SYMPATISK ETNOGRAFI ELLER SOLIDARISK KRITIK?

Resumé

Traditionally, anthropologists have

sympathized with marginalized objects of

study – people who do not have the power

to speak for themselves. Acting as advocates

of subordinate groups has thus seemed

much more attractive to anthropologists

than studying institutions and powerful

informants. Though many recent studies of

Western institutions and elite groups have

modified this viewpoint, a marked tendency

still exists to criticise these informants

for being unambiguously hegemonic,

whereas minorities are almost automatically

rendered as complex. The article considers

the methodological implications of letting

the status of the informants influence which

ethical codex is to be followed – a sympathetic

approach to marginalized people, or a critical

approach to dominant groups and institutions.

It is argued that fieldwork among elites can

hardly be legitimized if it does not strive to

render their worlds more comprehensible and

varied. Exemplified trhough a recent study of

the relations between teachers and bilingual

pupils in two French primary schools, it is

shown that the French teachers’ multiple

discourses on differences among the children

cut across the so-called “dominant” discourse

normally addressed by educational and

minority anthropology. This article shows

that a focus on the complexity of institutions

and powerful elites can point to possibilities

within the field studied for enhancing equality.

A more solidary perspective should therefore

inspire critical anthropology to break with

the usual dichotomy between power or elite

and the “victims” hereof. Instead, we need to

engage all parties studied as competent and

often reliable informants in order to make

our critique more accurate.