Towards a carnal anthropology: reflections of an "imperfect' anthropologist

This article offers an exploration into the ways in which the researcher's body enters into a permanent dialogue with the practices and the discourses of the research participants, and is transformed into an essential investigative tool. Based on my ethnographic experience amongst a group of Brazilian travesti sex workers, I will show how my own imperfect' body, according to the travesti canons of feminine aesthetics, became an element that awarded me visibility and served as a bridge to interaction with them. At the same time, I was accidentally interpreted by the group as the photographer'. From this corporeal interaction, and via the medium of the camera, I was able to legitimize my position amongst travestis and open a new field of theoretical enquiry, developing, therefore, Wacquant's proposal (2004) on a corporeal sociology' in the understanding of the active role that the body takes in the research process.