Playing the dance,dancing the game: Race,sex and stereotype in anthropological fieldwork*

This article explores the complexity and implications of sustained sexual relationships between ethnographers and people in the field with whom they work. It explores influences on the kinds of knowledges the ethnographers acquire and the kinds of ethnographies they produce, as well as insights into issues of race, gender, and social and economic differences. This specific discussion revolves around a relationship the author had with a fellow capoeira angola player in Salvador, northeastern Brazil. Representations of Otherness and its relationship to tourism, economic inequality and concepts of self as well as to gender norms, are argued as playing an active and politicized role in the insights gained through the participant/observation methods of anthropology.