Abstract

In 2020 and 2021, anthropologists confronted the obstacles of conducting fieldwork during the global COVID-19 pandemic. For months, we endured quarantine with others and grieved the loss what many consider the basis of our professional identity: participant observation. We were unable to predict how much our methodological toolkit would have to stretch and shrink to keep up with public health restrictions during a pandemic. We repeatedly asked ourselves: what, in fact, is ethnography and how can we do our work now? To address such a methodological predicament, this paper presents an ethnographic investigation conducted in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area during the summer of 2020 to show how several small-scale agricultural businesses managed to feed confined city dwellers during lockdown. Although concerns for these farmers’ dealings are practically absent from planning policies, they operate in the territory, changing the food system from within. This article also presents the pros and cons of investigating during a pandemic and the implications of reflexivity in the construction of ethnographic knowledge, even if our research needs to be done digitally and remotely for the time being.

摘要

在 2020 年和 2021 年，人类学家在全球 COVID-19 大流行期间面临进行实地调查的障碍。几个月来，我们忍受着与他人的隔离，并为失去许多人认为我们职业身份的基础而悲痛：参与观察。在大流行期间，我们无法预测我们的方法工具包需要扩展和收缩多少才能跟上公共卫生限制。我们反复问自己：事实上，民族志是什么，我们现在如何开展工作？为了解决这种方法论困境，本文介绍了 2020 年夏季在里斯本都会区进行的民族志调查，以展示几家小型农业企业如何在封锁期间设法养活受限制的城市居民。尽管规划政策中几乎没有对这些农民的交易的担忧，但他们在领土内运作，从内部改变了粮食系统。本文还介绍了在大流行期间进行调查的利弊，以及反思性在人种学知识构建中的影响，即使我们的研究暂时需要以数字方式和远程方式进行。