Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on an ethnographic study of a South African field-site in which scientists and film-makers observe meerkats. It contrasts the place of ignorance in the practices of both types of observers, and in those of a third: the anthropologist himself. It uses these contrasts to reflect on recent calls to move away from epistemology in anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws on an ethnographic study of a South African field-site in which scientists and film-makers observe meerkats. It contrasts the place of ignorance in the practices of both types of observers, and in those of a third: the anthropologist himself. While the first explicitly highlight their ignorance of particular aspects of meerkats' lives and motivations as part of a practice of scientific accountability, the second tend to elide it as something which gets in the way of viewers' sense of connection with the animals on the screen.

This ethnographic contrast between the explicit recognition of ignorance and its implicit elision is used to reflect on the recent turn away from epistemology and towards ontology, in anthropology and the social studies of science. Here too, it seems, the creation of new substantive connections requires the question of ignorance to be backgrounded or eliminated altogether. The paper examines some limits of this strategy.