Taking as a starting point research in the African context on socialisation and on social links concerning the AIDS phenomenon, this article investigates the role of the researcher in relation to the disease. How does he or she define his or her own relation to the object of study, to the informants and, more widely, to the actors concerned by the research? How does the researcher deal with methodological theories, such as that of moral neutrality towards the disease in particular that of AIDS? Can he or she manage to accommodate the concept of neutrality with his or her own moral, social and political engagement? These questions are discussed on the basis of theoretical propositions of Norbert Elias concerning commitment and the taking of distance as used by Didier Fassin to analyse social science research on AIDS in Africa.
intervention; disease; role of the researcher; AIDS; Western Africa
