Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between reflexivity, objectivity and moral and ethical practices in anthropological method and theory. I will illustrate my argument through the antiorientalist and postcolonial body of theories and the specific ethnographic context of the Kolkata intellectuals.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between reflexivity, objectivity and moral and ethical practices in the anthropological enterprise. Anthropological research is situated in the intersection between the global and the local, in the dynamics of the specific ethnographic field and the interrelation to national, transnational and global relationships and processes. I will elaborate on those issues in relation to the anti orientalist and postcolonial body of theories. Anti orientalist and postcolonial theories entered social sciences as a critique of western hegemonic dominance. The aim was to contest the authority of institutional orders of knowledge in Western intellectual and philosophical paradigms and the oppressive power relations in them. The body of theories emphasises the necessity of critical and self-reflective practices. An analysis should include a critical reflection and deconstruction of theoretical and methodological assumptions of Western social science. Anti orientalist and post colonial approaches have turned to a pre dominant postmodern methodology. Although, the postmodern approach entails negative consequences, amongst other it gives way to an apolitical anything goes relativism. The point that I will put forward is that methodological and theoretical debates should be closely related to a political context. In my reading a phenomenological approach and the approach developed in radical phenomenology might be a way of rendering the subaltern voices without denying the right to give moral, ethical, political standpoints and taking into account political awareness and responsibilities. I will illustrate my argument through the specific ethnographic context of the Kolkata intellectuals.