Ethnography of the Verb and Ethnography of the Sign: Around Peirce’s Abduction and the Question of Observation Experience in Sociology
This article raises the problem of observation and field work from the construction of heuristic links around the concept of abduction of Charles S. Peirce, through the notion of Serendipity developed by R. K. Merton and the concept of pure experience to William James. The goal of the subject is thinking the issue of abduction not only as a type of inference based on the formulation of a body of plausible hypotheses from a real doubt that engages research, but to seize the abduction in his moment first (the firstness of C. S. Peirce), as an unexpected and unprecedented ways with the real encounter. To illustrate this idea, the article tells the story of three moments of the ethnographic experience drawn from Bali and Mexico and which will rise a surprise effect for observers who have experienced them. From there, it is to wonder about the role of chance in field work and the category of the unexpected in the sociological research.