ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the consequences for fieldwork and anthropological knowledge. Societies are no longer bounded centers, and the unit of anthropological research does not approximate the realities people have to live in. Interests or power claims of natives also intervene with the anthropological endeavor, sometimes in a way that the anthropological research is impossible and taboo. Similar constraints to fieldwork have consequences not only for ethnographic fieldwork but also for the anthropological body of knowledge. A more important lament was about a gap between anthropological perspectives and theoretical orientations on the one hand and ununderstandable pain and suffering on the other hand. In societies with a high prevalence of crime and violence, fieldwork is even further fragmented; the traditional practice of going into the field became untenable, not only for the safety of anthropologists, but also for the safety of the research participants.
