Discretionary Ethnography: Eliding the Personal and the Political in Two Latin American Research Settings

Anthropological fieldwork entails unforeseen details and raises unanticipated issues. My dissertation research in the mid-1970s explored the organization of work among Quechua Andean migrants cultivating coca in the Amazonian forests of eastern Bolivia. I collected too much information to process all that was relevant (omissions) and had to avoid reporting potentially harmful data (silences), especially given the expanding cocaine traffic beyond the community. Beginning in 1993, my next research project in a Costa Rican ceramic artisan community involved less analysis of aggregate data (omissions) and a greater emphasis on individual actors. This required discretion in reporting on conflicts (silences), especially concerning struggles to create an ecomuseum. Throughout long careers, changing anthropological orientations shape our choices about what and what not to pursue in the field and then recount. For me, an initial focus on human ecology expanded to include political economy and later also expressive culture, fostering a more holistic commitment.