ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the engaged Colombian ethnography emerged over time and tease out of its history a sense of what collaboration has meant to Colombian researchers. It focuses on social scientists whose work with popular movements has revolved around the construction of a research agenda, as opposed to those whose relationships with social movements have been confined to advocacy. Colombian ethnographers have for decades engaged in a committed anthropology marked by political and social collaboration, blurring the lines that separate what their North American colleagues call applied anthropology, advocacy, and pure research. The experiences of Vasco and Urdaneta in Guambia suggest that what is at stake in collaboration is the bridging of epistemological and methodological differences in the service of a political agenda.
