To go to make research and to be researched

Abstract

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.