ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the challenges involved in carrying out outsider research and in doing critical ethnography. It suggests that desiring to be empathetic inspires to undertake the interpretive acts, and requires to look for similarities and to achieve a sense of Verstehen which is similar to the way in which the other understands herself. The concept of empathy originates in aesthetics where it is characterised by emotional congruence in interpersonal experience of an emotion-eliciting creative object. Empathy is directly linked with values in that it is an instrument used in secondary socialisation to instil particular values in children and young adults such as a sense of justice, solidarity and respect for others. Accordingly, being empathic is a prerequisite for carrying out fieldwork; some would go as far as saying that it is, 'one of the main skills needed to undertake qualitative research'. The methods and perspectives required to undertake the kind of fieldwork summarily called 'empathic ethnography'.
