“I was at Home!” The Dream of Representation in the Representation of a Dream.

Abstract

This creative essay uses a dream the author had during fieldwork as the starting point for a discussion of the conundrums of representation. The dream epitomises the alterations that observation causes on the portions of reality that the ethnographer selects and concentrates upon. The rest of the essay tells of how the author attempted to find his own personal solution to the problem of representation thanks to inspiration found in a photo exhibition and the letter of a friend and mentor. Such interpenetration of oneiric, photographic, and epistolary materials works as a pretext to discuss the importance of remaining faithful to the anthropological mission of making people visible and not being hindered by the methodological impossibility of representation.