To go to make research and to be researched
Keywords:
Fieldwork, China, anthropology, Chinese migrationAbstract
The already tight control experienced by foreign anthropologists doing research in China during the 80s and 90s increased after the Tian’anmen crisis in 1989. The starting point of this article is an analysis of the position of intellectuals in China as a context for understanding the peculi-arities of the research process. This is fol-lowed by a description of the author’s first contacts with and early impressions of the Chinese world, comings and goings during three years of residence in China, and the personal process of immersion in an alien society and culture where the researcher is an object of investigation. The article concludes with a reflection on anthropological work: mistrust, sus-picion and their consequences, and the ethnocentrism that invariably stalks us, as well as possible strategies, pathways and alternatives for de-centering monolithic Western knowledge.