Between Proximity and Distance: Where do We Place the Field?
The aim of this text is to clarify the different meanings of the word «field», to analyse its use and to show the traps set by poorly controlled social proximity. At first glance, the field reveals itself only in its materiality. It appears as a place of practice for ethnologists, a place to experience and to live. But the field is not an absolute entity: it depends on the person grasping it, on his or her culture and history. As soon as it is seen, it is already constructed, determined and theorized. Moreover, this article shows how field work, local investments and local democracy are linked in France. In today’s world, problems areas, which were once symbolic places of public action in favor of the excluded, seem to have become the place of an institutional approach using the territory as a point of reference. Moving from field to territory reflects a transition from the management of problem areas to the control of the processes that use the exclusion of some people to increase the standing of others.