ABSTRACT

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.

chapter 1|15 pages

Entanglements of fieldwork

An introduction

chapter 2|2 pages

Unspeakable

Silences and silencing around fieldwork amid violence

chapter 3|16 pages

Drawing on your inner anthropologist

Some tools for violent and difficult ethnographic fields

chapter 5|11 pages

The fieldwork of never alone

Reframing access as relationships of care

chapter 6|4 pages

‘You are one of us', but I wasn't

Managing expectations and emotions when studying powerful security actors

chapter 8|17 pages

Staying sane and safe in Israel/Palestine

A foreign researcher's reflections on fieldwork across boundaries

chapter 9|21 pages

Involved and detached

Emotional management in fieldwork

chapter 11|16 pages

Side effects

How fieldwork and ethnography helped me reclaim my life

chapter 12|12 pages

Violent experiences, violent practices

Caring and silence in anthropology

chapter 13|17 pages

Hospitality and violence

Writing for irresolution

chapter 14|11 pages

Getting closer to the skin

Writing as intensity, writing as feeling

chapter 15|10 pages

Cherry blossoms and grilled lamb

An ethnographic short story