Paper short abstract:

Drawing on experiences of fieldwork in Macedonia, this paper focuses on the challenges faced by the ethnographer in simultaneously doing justice to storytelling whilst being part of the story itself, and in the process gaining a better appreciation of the subjectivity of the object of gossip.

Paper long abstract:

The need to delve more deeply into one's own complex and interwoven relationships with a past predating the ethnographic project is particularly critical for 'home' anthropologists concerned with drawing on memories and experiences in a more systematic or explicit manner. This paper will explore the potentialities of being more critically attuned to shifts in modalities and temporalities and the place of intuitive grasps of meaning that occur unintentionally, in the 'side view mirror' so to speak, of ethnography and authorship. Drawing on experiences of fieldwork in Macedonia, it will focus on the challenges faced by the ethnographer in simulatneously doing justice to storytelling whilst being part of the story.