Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a committed research project concerning the living conditions of working-class people in an Italian alpine valley. Moreover, it addresses the epistemological and social consequences that processes of ‘going public’ have on anthropologists’ skills, accountability, and position.

Paper long abstract:

As a growing literature is pointing out, scarce facilities - whether educational, working, commercial, or medical ones - often represent a public issue in rural, marginalized areas, where their insufficiency largely contributes to increasing people's precariousness and dependence from cars (see, for example, Coquard 2019). In such situations, highly contextual and collectively designed solutions seem capable of addressing these issues. A reliable representation of the social world, in particular, proves useful in designing local public services.

Being two anthropologists assigned by local authorities to bring out the lived experiences, expectations and claims of working-class people – farmers, hotelkeepers, youngsters – in an Alpine valley, we were confronted with the quandary of producing consistent anthropological knowledge and translating it to the local, institutional, and academic publics we are accountable to. In aiming to do research for and with people, non-ethnographical skills in group management and communication have proved relevant in particular for deconstructing our expertise and positions, while promoting a process of constant negotiation of social knowledge.

Moving from an ongoing research project on grassroots caring practices in the Italian Western Alps, this paper deals with the lessons we learnt while publicly conveying an anthropological research process. In exploring the epistemological and social consequences of making anthropology accountable to multiple publics, it addresses issues that are significant for anthropologists committed to an improving research praxis, whether in rural development or elsewhere.