Resumo

SALMON PERRILLIAT, Esteban. Empathy as Method. A Recipe against Exoticism. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2017, vol.38, n.152, pp.367-378. ISSN 2448-7554.  https://doi.org/10.24901/rehs.v38i152.311.

A certain approach to ethnography that overlooks history, disregards the agency of individuals, and avoids contextual descriptions produces unrealistic accounts that, instead of fostering mutual understanding, intensify the feeling of an insurmountable cultural breach among social groups. In his book, El fin del exotismo, Alban Bensa suggests effective methodological strategies that will allow ethnographers to better understand social groups that seem radically different from their own. To this end, he recommends placing history at the center of ethnographic work in order to: 1) demonstrate the importance of temporality in social transformation; 2) constantly question the role of the ethnographer among her/his interlocutors; 3) abandon the ambition of discovering general laws based on theoretical models; and 4) produce ethnographic chronicles that minutely describe the context, strategies and discourses of the actors.

Palavras-chave : ethnography; exoticism; methodology; empathy; reflexivity.