De las crónicas de Indias a Malinowski, o de la influencia (menospreciada) de los textos en el trabajo de campo

Abstract

The author defines the identity of anthropology as a scholarly discipline on the basis of the collective reading as well as writing of ethnographic texts, in a dialogue with fieldwork and with the personal gathering of information. He stresses the dialectic axis running between one's own and others' texts in awakening the anthropologist's consciousness, connected with the local as well as global historical contexts that permeate the anthropological practice. The reader will find a number of references to past junctures of the discipline, emphasis being laid on the Spanish and American literatures.