A model of distance analysis. Epistemic field notes for education ethnographers

Olivier Marty (1)

1 CRF - Centre de recherche sur la formation

This document aims to help education ethnographers to think about, describe and complete their scientific research: based on a personal research curricula and ongoing scientific discussions in social sciences and psychology, I develop an anthropology synthesis of three epistemic distances. (1) Cultural distance from fieldwork: How far is the education ethnographer from educational actors he/she is studying through a participatory observation? (2) Distance from scientific community: Once fully integrated within education fieldwork and into research action, how far is the education ethnographer from the scientific community of 'armchair anthropologists'? (3) Distance from oneself: how can an education ethnographer overcome the two previous contradictory identities and the tensions that they imply in his own personality? I am proposing a topographic model combining these three distances in order to locate education ethnography studies and education ethnographers' careers.

Mots clés: Distance; Ethnography; Education; Epistemology; Fieldwork

Mots clés: Ethnographie; Épistémologie; Terrain

Domaines: Education

Olivier Marty. A model of distance analysis. Epistemic field notes for education ethnographers. Ethnography and Education, 2014, vol. 10 (n° 1), pp. 17-27. ⟨10.1080/17457823.2014.922892⟩. ⟨halshs-01010283⟩