Naturalism and realism in urban ethnography Methodological issues for a street anthropology

Abstract

Establishing the basis for an ethnography of the street, conceived as a social space, requires previously reviewing the validity of those theoretical models used by the tradition of social anthropology as well as determining the appropriate instruments for describing and recording behavior. In terms of the latter, the use of non-intrusive and ethological styles of observation makes it pertinent to reflect on the necessity of re-establishing certain naturalist predispositions in ethnographic fieldwork and the leading role, now somewhat forgotten, of description in the resulting reports. In the case at hand, to speak of naturalism supposes, not only the invocation of a certain type of scientific research, but also implies asking anthropology to assume as its own a certain manner of seeing typical of literary, representational, or cinematographic naturalism.