German Conversations about Field Ethnography: A View from the Russian Tradition

Abstract

The article presents a Russian researcher’s view of German ethnographers as “Others” and their perception of fieldwork as the main practice and method of the discipline, as reflected in their informal communication. In attempting to compare this with the Russian material, I found that it was impossible to apply the same optics to the analysis of the professional cultures of Russian and German ethnographers, yet similar narratives about fieldwork emerged as the result. The reason for these similarities lies in the communicative nature of ethnologists’ work and the universal traits of the psychology of people who produce ethnological knowledge. Reflecting on my experience of collecting this field material in Berlin, I look at myself as an observer of “Others” and argue that subjective experiences and boundaries influenced the way the research was conducted and the character of interpretations that the material received. I further comment on the unfavorable role asymmetry between the researcher and the researched, that made the coproduction of knowledge problematic.