Il gesto antropologico come fonte della riflessione etica

Abstract

The author analyzes the relationship between epistemology and ethics of the practice of anthropological research through the process of his professional institutionalization started recently in Italy, and in particular the elaboration of the Code of Conduct. The definition of the contents of anthropological expertise to legitimate its social recognition and authorize a specific professional ethics require to rethink the fieldwork relationships and their pertinence in the process of knowledge production. The author proposes to overcome the conception of the relationship as methodical instrument and the ethics of obligation strictly related to it, both external to the act of anthropological understanding and insufficient to distinguish its originality, with a more comprehensive understanding of the fieldwork relationship as emergent social bond throughout the anthropologist implication (her/his social construction). Drawing on his research experiences and on the notion of the practice’s internal good as suggested by the moral theory of Alasdair MacIntyre, finally, the author points out a way to recognize in the anthropological endeavor itself its original contribution to public knowledge as the very source of its professional ethics and its theoretical import to the public discussion about the common good in general