Reflections on the ontology of ethnography

Between experience, power and intersubjectivity

Abstract

This paper presents a reflection on the ontological and epistemological assumptions of Anthropology and its stage of encountering the field: ethnography. For this purpose, and under a combined format of commented bibliography, essay and article, I present ideas posed by philosophers, social scientists and intellectuals who critique the modes of production of anthropological knowledge and the ontology of ethnography from the perspective of existentialism, radical pragmatism, phenomenology, and political economy. From my own field experiences among the Qom population of Formosa, and the epistemological ruptures produced by the visit of a Qom friend to Buenos Aires, I propose a common thread that recovers an existential critique of the anthropological discipline. The idea is to question the rigid positivism of classical Anthropology by proposing critical and reflective paths towards the realization of the praxis for a new, contemporary anthropological contract in our discipline.