The winding paths of political ethnography

Abstract

The text reviews the author’s extensive and productive career in the difficult craft of political ethnography. Through a reflective account of his own ethnographic experience, he highlights the importance and complexity of the craft; and therefore refers us to the findings, obstacles, problems, limitations and projections of ethnographic practice in politics. The document is divided into five sections, each corresponding to the research topics addressed by the author’s ethnographic career. These review the relation and usefulness of political ethnography in the study of clientele networks, collective action, and in the study of the gray area of politics, environmental suffering and the topic of waiting as an expression of the relations of social domination. The document closes with an invitation and a warning in regard to the craft of ethnography.