The Ethnographer as VIP. Thoughts on the Role of Researcher, Ethnographic Representation, and the Need to Rethink Collaboration

Eitler, Ágnes (2024) The Ethnographer as VIP. Thoughts on the Role of Researcher, Ethnographic Representation, and the Need to Rethink Collaboration. ACTA ETHNOGRAPHICA HUNGARICA, 69 (1). pp. 87-111. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate how collaboration between researcher and locals is established during a research process in contexts where there is an explicitly reflexive attitude towards one's own culture. My objective was to explore the role of the staging of folk culture in contemporary rural society. The presentation of certain distinctive features of folk culture is well known in the local societies in which I conducted my research, where new groups have occasionally been established for the purposes of “heritage preservation” over the last hundred years or so. In the wake of these theatrical productions, the settlements have acquired a regional, or even national reputation, resulting in a powerful reflection on local culture, while elements instated as “folk culture” have become a powerful basis for local self-identification. This reflexivity is enhanced by the fact that the local actors involved in heritage preservation increasingly act as members of the project society, while their activities can be seen as a kind of enterprise. Research subjects are also experts, since their knowledge extends to the formation of local culture as well as project-specific knowledge. The image that emerges of them in the course of the research, and the researcher's interpretation of their activities, are of particular interest to these groups in the context of permanent competition for funding, since a positive image counts as capital in the project process. In this study, I present how the examined groups evolved as interested parties through their specific interpretation of the researcher's role, the inclusion of reciprocity on the agenda, and the desire to learn about ethnographic representation; I then go on to describe the way in which the form and content of cooperation took shape during the research process.

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