A theme in vogue or a silent problem? First reflections on the ethnographic approach of a socio-environmental problem in a rural town (Córdoba, Argentina)

Abstract

This article presents some reflection points arisen from the beginnings of an ethnographic investigation that tries to tackle the way in which the structural transformations of the Pampean agricultural space influence in the daily life of a rural town of the central northern of Cordoba. Specifically, it is interested in exploring the existing political character around the problems of fumigations with agro-toxics and their association with different pathologies, and the challenges presented in the fieldwork in this social universe and in relation to this subject. In a journey that invites us to recognize as "silent problem" what we initially conceived as a "theme in vogue", we return to one of the central questions of all Anthropology: the existing distance between the social world and the assumptions we, investigators, make about it.Keywords: Ethnography, Socio-environmental issues, Political involvement, rural context