Soaking the Ingredients:

Reflections on Anthropological Practice

Abstract

Ethnographic fieldwork is built through intersubjective relationships; however, people are often treated as objects, while the participation —and embodiment— of researchers is overlooked. In these pages, I revisit an ethnographic experience to raise questions about dimensions that, although often left on the margins of scientific production, can meaningfully contribute to the construction of knowledge. Within this revisiting, experience, participation, affect, and learning gain particular relevance. The reflections presented here stem from an ethnographic study carried out with a group of migrant women working in a Peruvian food fair in Córdoba, Argentina. The dimensions under scrutiny can be summarized in three axes: the intersubjective character of anthropological practice, the embodied position of the researcher, and the pedagogical potential of fieldwork. Through several metaphors —scar, bridge, and affect—, experiences, narratives, and reflections derived from ethnographic labor are interwoven. Written in a dialogical tone, this essay seeks to pose questions and outline possible —always provisional and incomplete— answers, opening new horizons of inquiry through the reconstruction of a particular experience.

KEYWORDS: Ethnography. Participation. Fieldwork. Intersubjectivity. Affect.

Artwork cover: Picarones en aceite. Technique: Analogue photography, Pentax K1000 camera. Author: Camila Pilatti. Dated: July 2026.