THE OSMOSIS OF THE GAZES

homogenous entity, as Ouattara has so astutely pointed oUt.77 Narayan applies this general
characterization of the native to the local anthropologist.78 The native then means anybody
acting from within, whatever their identity or the path they have taken. Excluded from the
category are other anthropologists, including those who have spent their lives navigating the
two different worlds, even those who are more comfortable in their adopted country than in
the land of their birth. Copans provides some very apt words with regard to this sub-class to
describe the ethnologist as being split into two, and sometimes three, identities-"Western
foreigner," "national foreigner" (in the sociological sense) and "native operator."79
When we ignore what is so obvious, we create an illusion of distance that results in two
very distinct worlds. Many anthropologists have worked against this binary vision by sys-
tematically analyzing the relationship between the investigator and the investigated. Michael
Jackson situates the complicity between the two actors at the heart of his analysis and goes
so far as to suggest in his method that the break with "traditional empiricism," and its sharp
divide between the "observed" and the "observer," should be called "radical empiricism."180
Spittler supports Jackson's method, but emphasizes his own identity as an anthropologist
who questions, writes down, records and classifies.8' Gupta and Ferguson put forth a flexible
understanding of the researcher's identity.82 Far from being something that is established
once and for all (middle-class white, for example), it is subjected to a strategic development
that stems from the researcher's work itself.
I do not intend to rehash all of these analyses because my interest and my intentions
are altogether different.83 I wish to know what attitudes Western researchers have displayed
when using the tools of anthropology and/or of oral history to study their own societies.
How do they handle the theme of distance that has been established as an ideology at the
founding of ethnology?
Karl-Heinz Kohl aptly defines the problem by bringing up the concept of relational
otherness (die relationale Fremdheit).84 Today, anthropologists are focusing as much on
Western societies as they are on foreigners in a foreign land. Given this new focus, an an-
thropologist would need to step back from his own culture, which he previously believed
he knew very well. This relational otherness takes on the quality of a methodological prin-
ciple, which speaks well for the discipline. Thanks to the tools of social network analysis,
anthropology was able to move into a new field of study, that of Western institutions,5
Anthropologists also got their hands on new empirical objects such as corporations, hos-
pitals, subway systems, the inner-city as well as suburban neighborhoods. All of these are
inscribed within the same space studied by sociologists of modern Europe.6 The objective
of the discipline is being transformed as it develops87 Anthropology sets as its primary goal
the "way others conceive of the relationship between themselves and others: the first other-
ness (that of those who are studied by the anthropologist) begins With the anthropologists
themselves and is not necessarily related to ethnicity or nationality. Indeed, it can stem from
their social class, profession, or place of residence."88

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