Gros Stéphane
Centre for Himalayan Studies, CNRS, France.
Asia Pac Viewp. 2010;51(2):148-63. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2010.01421.x.
During long-term fieldwork the increasing involvement of the ethnographer in the lives of others raises a series of methodological and ethical issues. These can become even more pronounced when one is working with ethnic minorities in a socialist country. Yet, a seldom acknowledged reality of ethnographic fieldwork experience are the 'little failures' that occur along the way, alongside ethnographic blunders. I argue that these are difficult to avoid and can be part of an important learning process, oftentimes for both researcher and researched. Through the detailed description of a blunder that the author made during his research in southwest China with members of the Drung ethnic minority, this article advocates for the heuristic value of such mishaps, suggesting that one can learn a lot from accidents and unexpected events while undertaking in-depth ethnographic fieldwork. In this case, this helped to shed light on the micropolitics of Drung village life in southwest Yunnan, and the place of a 'minority nationality' in wider Chinese society.
在长期的田野调查中，民族志学者越来越多地融入他人生活，这引发了一系列方法论和伦理问题。当研究者在社会主义国家与少数民族群体合作时，这些问题可能会变得更加突出。然而，民族志田野调查经历中一个很少被承认的现实是，在研究过程中会出现一些“小失误”，还有一些民族志研究中的大错。我认为这些失误很难避免，而且往往对研究者和被研究者来说都是重要学习过程的一部分。通过详细描述作者在中国西南部与独龙族成员进行研究时所犯的一个错误，本文倡导这类失误具有启发性价值，表明在进行深入的民族志田野调查时，人们可以从意外事件和突发事件中学到很多东西。在这个案例中，这有助于揭示云南西南部独龙族村落生活的微观政治，以及“少数民族”在更广泛的中国社会中的地位。
