From Rapport Under Erasure to Theaters of Complicit Reflexivity

Abstract

This article offers a sketch of the past uses of the concept of rapport in anthropological discussions of its core identifying method of fieldwork. The trope of collaboration, emphasized in the 1980s critiques of ethnographic authority, failed to displace the rhetorical power of rapport in defining the ethos of fieldwork. Only the changing conditions of many contemporary fieldwork projects have dislodged the naturalness and symbolic strength of the concept in anthropology’s professional culture, but without offering any alternative. Instead, the complicities of fieldwork relations emerge in the shadow of rapport “under erasure” as a focus for reimagining the elements of the classic, regulative ideals of fieldwork.