A model of distance analysis. Epistemic field notes for education ethnographers

Abstract

This document aims to help education ethnographers to think about, describe and complete their scientific research: based on a personal research curricula and ongoing scientific discussions in social sciences and psychology, I develop an anthropology synthesis of three epistemic distances. (1) Cultural distance from fieldwork: How far is the education ethnographer from educational actors he/she is studying through a participatory observation? (2) Distance from scientific community: Once fully integrated within education fieldwork and into research action, how far is the education ethnographer from the scientific community of ‘armchair anthropologists’? (3) Distance from oneself: how can an education ethnographer overcome the two previous contradictory identities and the tensions that they imply in his own personality? I am proposing a topographic model combining these three distances in order to locate education ethnography studies and education ethnographers' careers.

Keywords:

• distance
• ethnography
• education
• epistemology
• fieldwork
• anthropology

Notes

1. http://olivier.txt.voila.net/these/ethnographiedentreprise.htm.