Palestinian Ethnography between Science and Politics : The Impossible Detachment of the Researcher
Through a reflexive analysis of her « fieldwork » in Palestine, the author develops an epistemological reflection on the nature of anthropological « fields ». She particularly tackles the place of subjectivity in the construction of the object and its restitution. In this case, subjectivity manifested itself in the political implication of the anthropologist. Indeed, the access condition to such a politicized issue as the Palestinian memory entails an explicit stand on the Israeli-Arab conflict. Such an implication – requested by the Palestinian actors and inferred by the researcher’s values – has important consequences on the production of scientific knowledge. It is accordingly necessary to clarify it in order to allow a dialogue between different perspectives and thus enrich the comprehension of complex and moving social realities.