ABSTRACT
This introduction to the anthology Philosophy on Fieldwork: Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis argues that the fertile but also contentious middle ground between philosophy and anthropology is the soil out of which good analysis emerges. Addressing a lacuna in contemporary textbooks within anthropology and fieldwork-based social science as well as in applied philosophy – namely a lack of attention to analytical practice – it argues that good analysis entails a “bifocal wonder.” Fieldwork-based analytical insights happen, so we argue, when in the very moment that philosophical concepts open up fieldwork experience to exceed what is merely given, those same concepts are transformed to transcend their own origin. The introduction discusses the decolonial ambitions of bifocal wonder and suggests the didactical need for a “show-don’t-tell” approach to analysis in fieldwork-based research. Finally, it justifies the “creative obstruction” of one-philosopher-per-chapter adopted in the book. In light of the predominant philosophical polyamorous nature in contemporary anthropological theory and analysis, the chapter argues for the anthropological need to take philosophical concepts seriously – by which we mean taking them neither too lightly nor too literally.
