HAU-Journal of Ethnographic Theory

Foreword: Argentina’s libertarian experiment

2025-10-27

Federico Neiburg, Pablo Semán

Two eyes, two natures: Jean Rouch’s “shared ciné-anthropology” and its ontological implication

2025-10-27

Tadashi Yanai

The purpose of this article is to examine the implications of Jean Rouch’s work—taken in its entirety—for ethnographic theory. I propose here to go outside of the category of visual anthropology with which it is usually associated, and reconnect it to the much broader area of anthropology-and-cinema where Rouch, in reality, worked. After some preliminary discussions, I first revisit Rouch’s biography and then analyze one of his early films, Yenendi: Les hommes qui font la pluie (1951), in order to identify some fundamental motifs of his work. I then comment on three essential Songhay ontological ideas (bia, hampi, and hunde) and show how these ideas directly constitute the backbone of Rouch’s major films, including fiction films such as Gard du Nord (1965). I suggest that his work was a sort of ontological anthropology avant la lettre, realized by other (i.e. cinematic) means, and it also helps us think further on the issue of “controlled equivocation.”

The explosion of the mirror: Uneasy reflections on fieldwork

2025-10-27

María Lorena Capogrossi, María José Magliano

The aim of this article is to make visible the mechanisms of data production with which we elaborate our scientific production. Based on qualitative research conducted with non-domestic cleaning workers, both women and men, in the city of Córdoba (Argentina), we seek to critically reflect on how, with whom, and why we do qualitative research. Among the main findings, four analytical dimensions are addressed: the tension between horizontal and/or hierarchical relationships that are built during the research process; the tendency to romanticize the objects of research and the effects that such romanticization may have on the process under scrutiny; the often “toxic” relationships we establish with the theoretical frameworks we work with; and the collision between “native categories” and “theoretical categories,” a process that occurs when the field tells us something different from what is expected. These reflections are not intended to be a methodology manual, but rather to bring to the table those aspects that emerge during fieldwork and are sometimes left out of ethnographies.

Boundaries within intimacy: Jewish women in Moroccan spaces

2025-10-27

André Levy

This article explores the complex interplay of differentiation and cultural intimacy in the interactions between Moroccan Jews and their Muslim neighbors. While the Jewish community in Morocco emphasizes its distinct identity by maintaining clear boundaries between Jewish and Muslim spaces, this effort paradoxically highlights shared cultural understandings between the two groups, facilitated by a tacit Muslim agreement to the existence of Jewish enclaves. Jewish women, marginalized both as Jews in a Muslim-majority society and as women in a patriarchal Jewish community, navigate this duality not by uniting these forms of marginalization, but by focusing on the existential threat of being a Jewish minority. This perceived threat is counterbalanced by the cultural intimacy between the groups. The article illustrates how Jewish women strategically use their unique position to negotiate and manage cultural boundaries.

Unconscious entrainments

2025-10-27

Jason Cons