ABSTRACT
This chapter details the ethnographic self-challenges of researching social worlds that are saturated by heavy and shifting emotional expression. The fieldwork discussed centers on the Gold Star Mother’s Organization, whose members have lost a child who was serving in active-duty military service. I draw from 6 years of participant observation in events and conventions, and associated field interviewing. While at the start I knew I was entering a field site where I would hear stories of loss and witness emotional expressions of grief, I was unprepared for the rapidly shifting nature and array of emotional communication, especially during national conventions. In a short space of time, there was laughter, banter, loss, intense sobbing, and the mundane exchanges that litter interaction such as “can you pass me the coffee?” In a flash, events can suddenly shift, ritual-like, from emotion-laden memorial services to sober bureaucratic installations of officers and business meetings, to formal banquets, and tourist trips. Expected emotional expression varied dramatically, which gradually prompted me to consider emotions’ performative organization. This chapter walks the reader through moments of emotional order and emotional chaos, exemplifying the challenges of documenting and understanding the sentiments and complex rapport of ethnographic fieldwork.
