ABSTRACT

Ethnographic fieldwork necessarily involves making choices about which communities to work with, sympathize with, and support. This article explores the moral or ethical frameworks through which anthropologists make those choices. While in some cases the moral, ethical, and political grounds on which to make those decisions may be clear, in many they are not. I focus on the Alto Beni region of Bolivia, in which two groups that could reasonably be described as indigenous are engaged in a conflict over access to land. Both positions could be framed in terms of a reparation for historical injustice against indigenous people, though each framing depends on a different conception of indigeneity. The ambiguity produced in this context exposes the subjective nature of the process by which anthropologists choose the communities with whom they work. I conclude by suggesting that anthropologists make these choices based on emotional, affective, or aesthetic grounds.

摘要

民族志实地考察必然涉及选择与哪些社区合作、同情和支持的社区。本文探讨了人类学家做出这些选择的道德或伦理框架。虽然在某些情况下做出这些决定的道德、伦理和政治依据可能很清楚，但在许多情况下却并非如此。我专注于玻利维亚的 Alto Beni 地区，其中两个可以合理地被描述为土著的群体在土地使用权方面发生了冲突。这两种立场都可以从对历史上对土著人民的不公正进行赔偿的角度来构建，尽管每个框架都取决于对土著性的不同概念。在这种情况下产生的模糊性暴露了人类学家选择与他们合作的社区的过程的主观性质。