Anthropology Comes In When Translation Fails

Instead of focusing directly on the epistemological problems facing the anthropol-ogist, this paper aims to reverse the ethnographic lens and reflect first on what the ethno-graphic situation does for the ???ethnographed???: what kind of work do the subjects of an inquiry engage in when they consent to an ethnographic relation? What affordances does it offer them? Briefly put, my answer to this question would be that it allows them to experiment novel ways of giving shape to and translating forms of reflexivity that are always historically and politically situated. If this is the case, it follows that the ethnographer is involved in trans-lating a process of translation he or she has elicited, indeed co-produced with the subjects of the inquiry. What might be the consequences of viewing ethnography as the translation of a translation ??? as opposed to the translation of ???a culture????