This book focuses on the emotional hazards of conducting fieldwork about or within contexts of violence and provides a forum for field-based researchers to tell their stories. Increasingly novice and seasoned ethnographers alike, whether by choice or chance, are working in situations where multidimensional forms of violence, conflict and war are facets of everyday life. The volume engages with the methodological and ethical issues involved and features a range of expressive writings that reveal personal consequences and dilemmas. The contributors use their emotions, their scars, outrage and sadness alongside their hopes and resilience to give voice to that which is often silenced, to make visible the entanglements of fieldwork and its lingering vulnerabilities. The book brings to the fore the lived experiences of researchers and their interlocutors alike with the hope of fostering communities of care. It will be valuable reading for anthropologists and those from other disciplines who are embarking on ethnographic fieldwork and conducting qualitative empirical research.
Author(s): Nerina Weiss, Erella Grassiani, Linda Green
Series: Routledge Studies in Fieldwork and Ethnographic Research
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 208
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Contributors
Preface
1 Entanglements of Fieldwork: An Introduction
Ethnography and Violence
Fieldwork Under Duress
Violence and Non-Events
Emotional Fieldwork
Ends Without Redemption
Conclusion
References
2 Unspeakable: Silences and Silencing Around Fieldwork Amid Violence
Note
3 Drawing On Your Inner Anthropologist: Some Tools for Violent and Difficult Ethnographic Fields
Frames
To Sit Steadily in the Chair
Transference and Countertransference
Reverie and Free Association
Containing
Secure Base
Sublimination
Creative Writing
The Writing Poem
Writing as Painting
Notes
References
4 A Cautionary and Hopeful Tale About Experiencing, Thinking With, Writing Through, Reflecting On, and Teaching the …
Introduction
Fiji: Culture, Conflict, and Coups
Tales of Emotional Discombobulation From the Field
Encounter #1
Encounter #2
Encounter #3
Writing Feeling: Emotion and Ethnography
Emotions and Ethnography: a Pedagogical–pastoral Teaching Complex
Notes
References
5 The Fieldwork of Never Alone: Reframing Access as Relationships of Care
Introduction
Reframing Access and Exclusion as Relationships of Care
Paying Attention to Access and Exclusion in Settler Colonial Contexts
Access Reveals Power: the Role of Race and Gender
Never Alone: Relational Care, Jealousy, and Bed-Sharing
Che Celosaite! I’m So Jealous: Protection and Power Through Care-Taking
Protective Strategies: What They Signal
Conclusion
References
6 ‘You Are One of Us’, But I Wasn’t: Managing Expectations and Emotions When Studying Powerful Security Actors
Note
References
7 Conversations About Violence During Fieldwork in Colombia
Introduction
Background of the Project
Layers of Danger
Project-specific Risks
Paranoia and Determining Safety
Showing Trust
A Calm Paranoia
Conclusion
Note
References
8 Staying Sane and Safe in Israel/Palestine: A Foreign Researcher’s Reflections On Fieldwork Across Boundaries
A Difficult Time for Anthropology in Israel/Palestine?
Pragmatic Considerations: Getting in
Balancing the Line Between Research and Activism: On Night Patrol in a Besieged Village
Crossing Boundaries and Managing Signals
Mistaken as a Settler in the West Bank
Briefly Detained in Gaza
A Note On Ethics, Boycott, and Visibility
Conclusion: Researching Across Boundaries
Notes
References
9 Involved and Detached: Emotional Management in Fieldwork
Feelings as Knowledge Production?
Example 1. Fieldwork With Armed Groups in the Congo
Managing Emotions in Contexts of Insecurity
Example 2. Paranoia in Romania
Was I a Spy?
‘Don’t Visit Us Again. You Only Make Trouble.’
Conclusions: ‘Distance Learning’
References
10 On Catalina’s Silence and the Things About Her I Still Do Not Know How to Say
It Still Lingers. That Silence.
Selfie
No Sign of Jonny
Beauty, You Are Irresistible!
Baby, I Do Not See Anything Different
Notes
Reference
11 Side Effects: How Fieldwork and Ethnography Helped Me Reclaim My Life
Introduction
A Flash of the Past
Dealing With My Own Past
Notes
References
12 Violent Experiences, Violent Practices: Caring and Silence in Anthropology
Violent Experiences
Violent Emotions
Violent Practices
Care
Becoming a Trauma-Informed Discipline
References
13 Hospitality and Violence: Writing for Irresolution
How to Read These Letters
Note
References
14 Getting Closer to the Skin: Writing as Intensity, Writing as Feeling
Introduction
The Labor of Reciprocity
Being Put Together
Bringing Oneself to Write
Conclusion: Figuring Out Feeling
Acknowledgments
Note
References
15 Cherry Blossoms and Grilled Lamb: An Ethnographic Short Story
Acknowledgments
Note
References
16 Making Common Cause: Ethics as Politics, Anthropology as Praxis: An Afterword
Entanglements
Mixed Emotions
Taking Leave
Ethics as Politics
Making Common Cause
Notes
References
Index
