As if We Were Not Friends: From (De)objectifying and (Re)positioning and Back

Based on three vignettes taken from interviews with friends who were members of a social-ecological transition initiative of which I was both an active participant and a researcher, this paper explores ethnography in friendship. Breaking with the methodological proposals known as friendship as method, this text proposes to reflect on the ways friendship acts in ethnographic interviews. Through a ritual that unfolds during the interview, leading us to act 'as if we were not friends', this article seeks to ponder the types of knowledge produced and raises issues related to the researcher's positioning within this kind of relationship. It turns out that the duo friendship-ethnography creates a particular space in which specific types of knowledges are produced and in which the researcher's subjectivity is resolutely transformed.