Apuntes para una “etnografía centrada en la persona” con los wichís del Chaco argentino

The paper proposes, on the one hand, a reflection on the anthropological methodology. It analyzes how the disciplinary paradigm and research practices neither encourage nor require a systematic clarification of the implicit methodology. On the other hand, the prerogatives of the biographical method are presented, which allows for a sensitive ethnography that tries to be particularly attentive to the “person” factor. Finally, some testimonies of current Wichís women from Misión Nueva Pompeya in the Argentinian Chaco are introduced. These stories were mainly told in Spanish and one of them was translated from the Wichí by the author itself with a young Wichi student. In these testimonies, the protagonists reflect on the meaning of some verbal expressions, propose notional translations, and explain their contexts of use.