ABSTRACT

Building on the ideas presented in the previous chapter, I explore the tendency of observers to make comparisons with the past or the future and to categorizing, labeling and evaluating what we see. I suggest strategies that can help us experience contexts in new ways and disrupt old scripts. Taking seriously what ethnographers mean by “getting along” in the field, as we build relationships and engage in ongoing work, I consider ways of handling the strong feelings that can be triggered in the field, as well as becoming more attuned to things that are not emotionally loaded, because these things reveal what is normative or taken for granted. I outline approaches we might take to better see more empathically and more clearly, with compassion for others and ourselves.