Paper short abstract:

By combining our experiences and ideas as an anthropologist and a multiculturalist to teach a pre-fieldwork seminar, we were able to address students‘ feelings and needs. We argue for learning from each other to overcome disciplinary blind spots which are dangerous with respect to "violent work".

Paper long abstract:

This contribution examines the entanglements of three violent settings in which we have worked. Recently, we co-taught a seminar, which took an in-depth, emotion- and trauma-informed look at ethnographic fieldwork in violent settings. With our students, we were grappling with questions, such as: What emotional barriers exist when conducting research and to what extent can we break through these limits? What are the boundaries that keep us and our research partners safe? What theoretical, psychological, and embodied resources can we mobilize during our research trips? Using experimental methods, including role play and one-on-one conversation carousels, we confronted our respective fears and vulnerabilities. Our classroom was in the historically violent IG-Farben-Haus, a building on the campus of the Goethe University Frankfurt, which commemorates Germany‘s Nazi past. Our seminar adressed awkward questions that are rarely addressed in qualitative methods trainings and drew on own divergent training. Nilly was building on her work in a multicultural classroom in Israel, navigating the tension of working with Arab and Jewish Israeli students in war time where the idea of multiculturalism has become difficult to maintain. Catherine is an anthropologist who has worked in multiple violence-affected contexts in Mexico and Southern California. By combining our divergent experiences and disciplinary perspectives, we were able to make individual feelings and needs seen. We argue for setting aside disagreements (such as over the definition of "culture") in favor of learning from each other and addressing our disciplinary blind spots - which are particularly dangerous with respect to "violent work".