On descriptions, rectifications, and scientific objectivity: methodological reflections from a research on sexual behavior and HIV/AIDS among men who have sex with men

Abstract

From a research about men who have sex with men and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, this essay reflects on the positivity of knowledge produced by ethnographic approaches. Once both explanatory and comprehensive methodologies are present, to a greater or less extent, in all investigations in human and social sciences, it proposes as false the opposition between both principles, questioning the scientific criteria of “scientific common sense” that use mathematics as demarcator. With that, the text exemplifies how the critical description of the act of researching and rectifying the obstacles to knowledge, identified in the path itself, grants objectivity to the knowledge produced. When compared to other comprehensive approaches, the ethnographic differential consists of explaining the researchers’ field experience as a critical and analytical resource.