Badacz jako gość
Researcher as a Guest

Summary/Abstract: The notions of “hospitality” and “a guest” are used in the article in order to analyze and interpret a researcher’s position during field-work. In an ethnographic approach the hospitality of study subjects towards anthropologists is often taken for granted. Relying on anthropological and philosophical conceptualizations of hospitality, different dimensions of host-guest relation (inequality, intimacy and reputation management) are demonstrated in order to reveal the problematic nature of the conceptualization of ethnographer-study subjects’ relation through the notion of hospitality. The ethical and epidemiological consequences of a researcher acting as a guest are shown: the blurring of the boundary between what is personal and what is professional, the potential conflict of loyalties and the excessive control of research subjects over a researcher. The situation of the lack of hospitality – and lack of access to the field – is also presented and viewed as a rule and not an exception of ethnographic methodology. The aim of the article is to propose a more pragmatic vision of ethnographic studies and to draw attention to structural conditioning's of ethnographer-research subjects’ relation that are situated beyond the ethical choices of individuals.

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