Solovey T.D. Between intuition and reason: research strategies in ethnological studies

Abstract: Although the structure and content of the “ethnography field” has radically transformed and the science of ethnography itself, clearly, is reorienting from the ethnic to the cultural-anthropological sphere, the myth of ethnography as a predominantly field discipline maintains its inertial influence in the professional environment. However, scientific practices – in the past and currently – attest to a multitude of research strategies (including their diverse combinations), rather than to the domination of a single one. The efficacy of one or another strategy is defined by its scientific fecundity. In the author’s hypothesis, empiricism and theoretical generalisation are not different stages, but are qualitatively diverse forms of scientific activity. Facts do not precede theory, but exactly the opposite: theory, setting forth an observation angle and structuring our perception of reality, shapes the subject field of science. Facts outside of theory do not exist. Yet the theory itself also has a starting point, which is based on a scientist’s pre-theoretical experience. Our ideological and political beliefs, our cultural baggage, and even our individual psychological profile and personal temperament, if do not strictly define, at least predispose towards the choice of a particular research position. Thus, a scientist’s chosen strategy is not so much a projection of rational calculations, as much as an intuitive (unconscious) inclination. Objective circumstances – ideological and political context, cultural and moral backgrounds, development level of the scientific discipline, type of socialisation – inevitably pass a succession of mediations through the human mentality. Only in this case can they have an influence on a researcher’s scientific priorities.

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