Abstract

CASILLAS BAEZ, Miguel Ángel  and  PENA DE PAZ, Francisco Javier. The ethnography in environmental conflicts and the borders of anthropology. Revista Col. San Luis [online]. 2020, vol.10, n.21, 00008.  Epub Mar 14, 2022. ISSN 2007-8846.  https://doi.org/10.21696/rcsl102120201183.

Our goal is to discuss the epistemological boundaries of Anthropology in the ethical context of ethnographers studying an environmental conflict. We review the positions in an ethnography of Temacapulín, Jalisco (Mexico) community in resistance by the construction of the El Zapotillo dam, through a longitudinal ethnographic work (follow-up from 2005 to 2018) that discovers details of a “big dam” culminated in neoliberalism, a tip to state’s hydraulic policy and a support for a management model that transfers public investment for private utilitarianism. A community in environmental conflict is the setting for different types of ethnography depending on the academic, institutional, personal implications, because it raises critical positions to the economic direction of public policy. Given the characteristics of environmental conflicts, this reflection discusses the boundaries of Anthropology according to the ethical position of ethnographers who study resistance to hydraulic projects that some denounce, others interrogate, but also a few argue legally.

Keywords : ethnography; frontiers of anthropology; ethics; environmental conflicts; hydraulic management.