Dilemma of a native: On location, authenticity, and reflexivity

With the focus on native/halfie anthropology, I address in this paper three issues of location, authenticity, and reflexivity of the anthropologist in close connection to the reality of uneven distribution of power inside academe among scholars and institutions, and, above all, anthropologists, including native anthropologists. I emphasise that interaction between the field and the ethnographer never closes even after the fieldwork is over; the issue of intersubjectivity is not confined in writing one book, but permeates an ethnographer’s lifelong career; the power relation is no longer divided only between the field and the home institution, but also divided within so-called Western academe. Through these discussions, I try to draw our attention to multiple axes of tension in the production of anthropological knowledge.