ABSTRACT
Based on a series of field situations in the author’s research into protest movements in Moscow and New York, the paper discusses the opportunities and limitations of feminist and collaborative methodology in ethnography. Where is the epistemological boundary between understanding and sympathy? What role do desire and loneliness play in the field? By means of a dialectical understanding of solidarity, the chapter deals with the methodological challenges in ethnographic research and poses the question of the particular nature of the relationships between ethnographers and people in their urban field. What exactly can it mean to act as organic, ethical, engaged or biased intellectuals? The author argues that reflecting on the question of the conditions for producing ethnographic knowledge can also contribute to a better understanding of the broader concept of solidarity.
