The ethnographic study of corruption: Methodology and research focuses

Davide Torsello*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Understanding of the reasons for the weak presence of anthropological knowledge on corruption can start from the ethical concerns that are common to ethnographers in the course of their field work research experience. There are basic ethical concerns that field workers raise when dealing with the study of a particular society, stemming out of issues such as the anonymity of informants, the purpose of the use of first-hand data and the role of the ethnographer as ‘intruder’ in the social reality he is observing (see Atkinson and Hammersley 1983; Clifford and Marcus 1986). One of the main debates that, in the early 1980s, have accompanied the major anthropological turn from the functional and structuralist paradigms towards hermeneutics and reflexivity has actually been about the proper use and usefulness of field work. Setting against the ‘traditional’ view of the authority of the field researcher, who could first attribute practices and ideas to the people he has been studying and later analyse these in meaningful manners, the influence from post modernist ideas have played a significant role in delegitimising the authority of the ethnographer (Faubion and Marcus 2009). Some anthropologists even came to the rather extreme conclusion that field work is unnecessary to build anthropological knowledge, putting emphasis on, among others, textual and critical analyses, narratives and discourses in lieu of practices and paths of institutional transformation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRoutledge Handbook of Political Corruption
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages183-196
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781317575931
ISBN (Print)9780415617789
DOIs
StatePublished - 17 Dec 2014
Externally publishedYes

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