Paper short abstract:

The preconditions for an anthropology in which the self can be considered a resource include reflexivity, the appreciation of the self as multiple and a commitment to a dialogic anthropology. I argue that the use of oneself as an ethnographic resource is not only possible but necessary.

Paper long abstract:

Although I have written more than a dozen academic papers on British Quakers and Quakerism I have not, until now, made clear my own position vis-à-vis the group. There have been two reasons (I tell myself) for this: first, it has not seemed necessary. Second, I was concerned that such an exercise might plunge me into a kind of half-baked self-analysis which would become not simply a means (of writing better ethnography) but an end in itself. If one takes the standard, objectivist view of anthropology these concerns make perfect sense. The 'greats' of the British School of Anthropology (Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard, Douglas, Richards and so forth) thought it neither necessary nor worthwhile to spill the ink of reflexivity in their academic work. Nevertheless, I will argue here that reflexivity is the first precondition for an anthropology in which the anthropologist's self can be considered a resource. A second, necessary condition is an appreciation of the self as multiple. A third is the commitment to a dialogic methodology. After mapping out these preconditions I will go on to show that the use of oneself as an ethnographic resource becomes not only possible but necessary.