Ce que proche veut dire

la proximité de l’ethnographe dans ses relations avec les guérisseurs-désenvoûteurs lorrains (France)

Abstract

Thanks to a rich fieldwork of seven years (2005-2012) in Lorraine with healers and their patients, the article engages a reflection on the specificities and potential methodological issues of ethnography “at home”. Based on concrete field experiences, the article questions the notion of proximity, both for the researcher and the participants. The nature and diversity of relationships with the survey area and territory helps understand a game of places to be occupied on the field relating to a certain type of closeness with the studied environment. Sharing language, territory, social category, religion, cultural features, etc., allows the researcher to benefit from a changing position of close relationship favorable to the investigation. The flexibility of proximity as a concept constructed and lived by the investigator and the investigated, and as facilitating transformations and adjustments, will be further discussed.