ABSTRACT
It is not so much the gender of the male ethnographer which influences the collection of gender-sensitive information from the field, but it is the ‘gender regime’ prevailing in disciplinary practices such as anthropology and sociology which determines the path charted by ethnographers and influences their research agenda in a way that culminates in gender-blind ethnographies. While many realities concerning gender such as sexual division of labour and work/s carried out in everyday life are not so hidden from any fieldworker irrespective of sex, the problem of ‘inaccessibility’ of male ethnographers to the ‘women’s world’ can be overcome through a collaborative fieldwork (of male and female ethnographers). An overemphasis and privileging of observation vis-à-vis other sensory sensibilities like listening and empathetic understanding in the fieldwork would draw ethnography closer to positivism. Where observation of certain gendered arrangements in a cultural context is difficult for a male ethnographer the latter can rely on listening as a tool to overcome this handicap.
