« Bombay »: Des notes de terrain au roman

Abstract

In her novel, which draws on her doctoral thesis, anthropologist Marie-Caroline Saglio revisits her ethnography of the slums of Mumbai. Her main character, a young idealist seeking to implement a project to make waste treatment profitable on behalf of a large British company, is confronted with the social, environmental, and political violence that has taken hold in his city. The interview addresses the challenges and opportunities presented by the transition from ethnography to novel writing through the following themes: How has literature about Mumbai influenced the writing? How does fiction change the relationship to ethnographic material? What does this allow in relation to scientific writing? How can literary imagination draw on the reality observed by the ethnographer? And what perspectives can be drawn from this for anthropology?