Taking distinction practices seriously: Methodological reflections on ethnographic distance in fieldwork with marginalized people

Anthropologists often consider the distinction from our interlocutors a barrier, assuming that overcoming the distance allows us to understand our interlocutors. Other times, ethnographers intentionally maintain ethnographic distance to avoid “doing harm” to our interlocutors. In either case, ethnographers are assumed to be responsible for maintaining a proper distance from our research participants. As two cultural anthropologists who work with marginalized groups (drug users and rural-to-urban migrant workers), we are aware of our emotional, cultural, and epistemological distances from our interlocutors. However, we also notice that our interlocutors often take the initiative to define their distance from us. In this paper, we explore these often-overlooked distinction practices employed by our research subjects. We view such actions as active negotiation with power relations, rather than passive avoidance. Thus, we propose a shift from merely acknowledging the intrinsic distinctions in the researcher-researched relationship to learning from and understanding the distinctions created by our interlocutors. We argue that our interlocutors’ agency in these distinction practices is crucial and warrants significant attention in ethnographic research. We further highlight distinction as a valuable method, a way of not only understanding our research subjects but also participating in their world.