Thank you for Lying To Me: On the Pragmatics of Honesty, Civility and Conversation in Ethnographic Fieldworg
Asmus Rungby (University of Copenhagen)

In the attempt to understand others and their conditions of life, anthropological fieldwork remains methodologically committed to the assumption that we ought first ask people themselves what their take is on the matter. While this approach helpfully and importantly centers the lives and thoughts of research participants this stance makes tacit assumptions about language as conveyance of information and insight. Based on long term ethnographic fieldwork in Malaysian Borneo this paper critically examines the political and historical context for these assumptions by contrasting how Bornean forms of civility and pragmatism challenges the possibility of asking questions and receiving answers.

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