Ethnographing and intervening

report of an engaged anthropology

Abstract

Engaged ethnographies are not new to anthropology. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the ethnographic exercise becomes, at times, prohibitive, other ways of acting are presented to anthropologists, whose job presupposes their insertion in networks of native relations. The transit through these networks, undertaken ethnographically, becomes useful to address problems presented by research interlocutors in the situation of vulnerability. In this brief report, I present my experience of engaged anthropology with immigrants and refugees in the city of São Paulo. It highlights the experience with migrants living in the municipality of Guaianases and my performance in the Health Care Network for Immigrants and Refugees. Finally, I argue that ethnography is a politically implicated activity, and that addressing problems presented by our research interlocutors are not filigree of the anthropologist's work, and locate him in this network of relationships in which he is inserted, evidencing their agencing by research subjects.