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- Convenors:
-
Alana Brekelmans
(University of Queensland Charles Darwin University)
Diana Romano (Deakin University / University of Queensland)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Vitality
- Location:
- WPE Anglesea
- Sessions:
- Friday 25 November, -
Time zone: Australia/Melbourne
Short Abstract:
In this panel we engage with affect and emotion as tools for anthropology. We ask how the discipline can better address trauma in fieldwork, respect empathy as central to ethnographic practice, and represent emotion in ethnography.
Long Abstract:
Researchers' bodies and emotions have long been regarded as central to the construction of ethnographic knowledge. And yet, long after the reflexive turn, ideals of 'ethnography without tears' (Roth 1989) persist, with many ethnographic accounts omitting the emotional experiences of the ethnographer. In many cases, ethnography continues to be imbued with a colonial and patriarchal rationality that rejects the researchers' emotional experiences or demands a 'sink or swim' and 'grin and bear it' approach to difficulties during fieldwork.
This has implications for well-being, recruitment and retention in the profession. Moreover, it overlooks the fundamental role of emotion in anthropological practice. Ethnographic attention to researcher emotions, mistakes, traumas, and vulnerabilities can be crucial in building rapport, illuminating and overcoming prejudices in the researcher's interpretations, and understanding complex social relations, sometimes enabling researchers to explore aspects of social life they would not have otherwise understood.
In this panel we ask, what does it mean to think with emotion in anthropological practice--that is, to do ethnography with tears? What knowledge does this thinking with construct?
We explore how the discipline can better address trauma in fieldwork, respect empathy as central to ethnographic practice, and represent emotion in ethnography. We invite contributions from anthropologists working in applied, academic, and creative research. Our aim is to initiate discussion and reflection on the role of emotion in anthropological work and what this means for anthropologists as subjects, scholars, and activists, as well as for a community of practice and the anthropological project at large.
Discussant: Professor Anna Hickey-Moody (RMIT)
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 November, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the role of researchers’ emotions in collaborative team fieldwork with people experiencing homelessness by using fieldnotes and follow-up discussions. It reveals how different team members do emotion work and how these emotions can yield important insights.
Paper long abstract:
Anthropological fieldwork always involves emotion work as well ‘people work’, especially when doing sensitive research with vulnerable social groups. In practice, fieldwork can never be 'an emotionless experience' (Spencer 1992) and the emotional experiences of fieldwork should not be relegated to something private, personal and almost secret (Davies & Spencer 2010; Lindholm 2007). Although taking participants’ emotions into account is fundamental to conducting sensitive ethnographic research, this paper also recognises that the researcher’s own emotions are a necessary part of research and need to be analysed. Researchers’ emotions constitute key cognitive/analytic resources and are a valid and powerful tool for understanding others. As important sources of information and tools of interaction, emotions can also be used as an additional layer of research information. Drawing on research experiences in a joint comparative research project (CSRP) on homelessness, this paper shows how fieldwork affects researchers in highly unpredictable and uncertain ways depending on their individual experiences and identities. It explores the role of researchers’ emotions while doing sensitive research with people experiencing homelessness and how this has an impact on the research team. The emotional impact of both fulfilling and distressing research experiences as well as the implications of role blurring in the field are considered. Specifically, fieldnotes and follow-up discussions are used to reveal how different team members do emotion work as well as handle emotionally charged experiences and how these emotions can yield important insights. Strategies for emotion management including debriefing, peer support and self-care strategies are also discussed.
Paper short abstract:
Emotional engagement is a crucial part of ethnographic practice. Yet a lack of concrete methodological guidance and discussion of alternatives may leave researchers unsupported and potentially vulnerable. I explore detachment and sensory engagement as important complements to emotional engagement.
Paper long abstract:
With the reflexive turn in the social sciences, emotional engagement is an inevitable and crucial part of data-gathering, analysis and sense-making, and representing fieldwork experiences. In ethnographic literature, emotions thus emerge as a construct for dealing with how ‘close’ one should strive to get to participants. However, there is a glaring gap in methodological guidance to this end. There is little detailed discussion of how emotional engagement may be safely, ethically, and productively leveraged in practice to build, manage, and withdraw from participant relationships, over the whole research process. Further, there is little elaboration of other kinds of engagement beyond the emotional.
In this paper, I argue for and present some theoretically-grounded possibilities and alternatives for approaching and managing the core tension of ‘how close is too close?’ in ethnographic practice. I draw illustrative examples from my own sensory ethnographic research into end of life in England (2017-2019), focusing on entering and leaving the field, and after one has left. In particular, I highlight the affordances of sensory engagement as a route to closeness, and emphasise the important complementary role of distance and detachment. Taking both engagement and detachment as embodied and relational (Evans et al. 2017; Yarrow et al. 2015; Candea et al. 2015), I consider how these together can inform considerations of ethnographic rigour, ethical tensions, and how to better support researchers in navigating the shifting process of ethnographic research.
Paper short abstract:
This paper present lessons in doing ethnography an indigenous cultural community during COVID-19 in Southern Philippines. I also present my experiences in negotiating my own vulnerabilities and emotional distress while interacting and listening to the stories of community's struggles and despair.
Paper long abstract:
This paper of my PhD report provides lessons or insights in the conduct of ethnographic research in an indigenous cultural community amidst COVID-19 pandemic in the province of Bukidnon, Southern Philippines. To shed light on this case, I provide two crucial yet pivotal moments that provide risks and opportunities in my ethnographic journey --but are not limited to: 1.) challenges on ethics and health protocols and 2.) entering the field (doing fieldwork) in one of the vulnerable communities or population. Likewise, I also present my vulnerabilities, personal biases and emotional distress while engaging in their social activities or gatherings, interacting with them from day-to-day basis and even listening to the stories of struggles and despair from my interlocutors. What must be done? And how do we process these personal dilemma while in the field? Are we still doing good ethnography if our emotions or even our biases are affected by interlocutors’ stories? As human beings, we also need to empathise and navigate our emotions but to what extent could that be? My personal experience in doing ethnography particularly during COVID-19 allows me to be open, adaptive, strategic and responsive to the well-being and emotions of my interlocutors and to myself as a researcher and as an individual, too.