Making visible the social actors who fight against the invisible

Abstract

During the ethnographic walk about my research in pandemic times, I was taken by a feeling previously described by Margaret Mead (1975, p. 3), a disciple of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. In addition to the importance of the subjects' anthropological description, I felt the necessity to make them visible. Nevertheless, we live in a moment that suggests social distance between the researcher and the interviewees, and the feeling of contact increases over the days. So, on a sunny Thursday afternoon in September, I inevitably began to observe life outside me. Although I cannot see the specific actors of the research, going out through the streets of downtown Cuiabá made me understand, through images, that there is a world of social actors to be followed (Latour, 2012, p. 31): here it is the photographic result of my encounter with care, knowledge, faith and hope.