Ethnographic Exchanges in Global Spaces

Until recent decades, anthropologists could assume that their informants did not have access to university or publishing circles that might allow them direct entry into ethnographic accounts. In the globalized spaces of intellectual interaction, ethnographic exchanges are no longer limited to the colonized spaces of police barracks, as in Alfred Radcliffe-Brown’s time, or headman’s porches, in the case of E.E. Evans-Pritchard. Native interlocutors in the ethnographic dialogue may possess degrees from the same universities and have access to the networks of colleagues who cite each other’s published works. It may be possible to transgress the intellectual property line of either party to the exchange, but it is no longer done with impunity.