Paper short abstract:

When conducting research with displaced people, relational kinship intimacies often arise. In this context, the positional shift of the researcher as an observant to an active participant for the mitigation of exposure to violence is both an ethical and emotional one, leaving longstanding traces.

Paper long abstract:

While preparation, access to having someone outside the field to honestly reflect with during fieldwork and learning self-care routines are key, the effects of conducting research in contexts of sudden or protracted violence can still be longstanding. Beyond the sudden cut of social ties and possible solidarities developed in the field, returning to the academic setting for the writing-up stage can also be experienced as an added form of violence, through the mis-recognition of the effects of PTSD and vicarious trauma, as well as, the embodied knowledge produced through these experiences, which may also relate to the researcher's active involvement in justice-making. The lack of institutional recognition of the emotional effects of traumatic processes in knowledge production, can leave one feeling alone and ashamed at a stage when analysing data can also be experienced as retraumatising. What is implied here, is a quasi-colonial relationality dictating that the academic has to forego emotional connections with their participants and themselves, for the sake of academic production. Reflecting on conducting fieldwork with people no longer on the move living in self-organised housing squats under imminent eviction in Athens, I centre methodological dilemmas, lingering regrets connected to inaction, emotional costs and also gains which can materialise in powerful insights, especially if writing can be experienced as healing. This can be greatly facilitated by a supportive institutional environment, which presupposes a repositioning from a metrics-driven, time and writing centred approach to academic knowledge, towards one focused on diversification and wellbeing.