| Summary: | A call for new methods for anthropology, this book explores the nature of anthropological knowledge and the conditions of integration and communication with people. Starting with an analysis of anthropologists' guilt, Fan addresses issues of reflexivity, reciprocity, and respect, then builds on this to evaluate how researchers generate knowledge. This book explores uninhibited methods for writing anthropology through a specific reading of the discipline that draws attention to guilt. Western anthropologists' guilt originates from both lacks and excesses of integration into communities of adoption. Another layer of guilt is embedded in the dilemmas of authorship that surface as soon as one settles on giving an account of people's lives. How come the 'Death of the Author' (Barthes), or even the sensation that 'I is someone else' (Rimbaud) give birth to so much autobiographical justification? And what prevents anthropologists from writing their wicked passions? What drives them to censor themselves? To what extent, in the end, can political animals get out of themselves and speak the truth?
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