Paper short abstract:

I will introduce the ethnopsychoanalytical (interpretation group) approach and its epistemological benefits by exemplifying it via my research on knitting and illustrate the path from (the description of) emotional experiences to dense argumentations via ethnopsychoanalytical interpretation work.

Paper long abstract:

I would like to take this panel as an opportunity to introduce the participants and the network itself to an epistemological-methodological tool that we have introduced at our Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology in Graz, Austria, in 2013. I am speaking of an ethnopsychoanalytical interpretation group headed by a professional group analyst. It is theoretically based on the theorem of transference and countertransference, here transferred from the therapeutical to a group setting. Working with the unconscious, this approach enables reflections of emotions and irritations which emerge during fieldwork and are subsequently articulated in the research diary. Freely associating research diary entries, we help uncover hidden (symbolical) meanings and thus render visible latent field and cultural logics.

In my presentation I will introduce the ethnopsychoanalytical (interpretation group) approach and its epistemological benefits by exemplifying it via my own research on knitting. Reproducing extensive diary entries as well as group interpretation minutes, I will illustrate the path from subjective descriptions of emotional experiences in research diary entries to serendipitous realisations via ethnopsychoanalytical interpretation work which ultimately lay the ground for strong arguments.

Paper short abstract:

This paper performs its healing. It draws on ethnographic research in an occupied courtyard in Barcelona, Spain, and the researcher's own embodied history of abandonment trauma to open a space for dialogue on the limits of autobiographical subjectify in ethnographic epistemology.

Paper long abstract:

I don't yet have the words, the theory. Traumatic event sounds definite enough to be outside myself. As if those bodies we shared, in the assembly, in the street before a home I save myself from calling my own. She kissed me—but this was supposed to be abstract, an abstraction into the general fold we must remember we never left. This is why I begin with safety, with holding (Winnicott), and move into the space of the unknown. There are two sets of arms here: one is ethnographic; the other, familial. Between them is the familiar space of making (hooks, Angelou). In 2019 I was in one of the most difficult relationships of my life. I had met her in an occupied courtyard where I hoped to be documenting (read, figuring out how to be alive and to care for myself) its social life. The relationship ended in me having a panic attack in public, in plain sight. Then I left, swearing I'd never return. In this paper, I draw on theories of the body (Moten, Lepecki, Dodge) to move through my embodied experience of having been a body in pain. Individuation is the process by which we, I, come to see ourselves as not we, but I. Childhood trauma informed my experience of being in relation to this woman, and I'd like to share some of the healing I've done around that and to show how theory can help us heal, rather than help us just think healing.

Paper short abstract:

I reflect on how grieving the death of my Tanzanian boyfriend during fieldwork in East Africa affected my relationships in and with 'the field'. Drawing from my experience of grieving during fieldwork, I reflect on the limitations of alienation and suffering for anthropological knowledge production.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I reflect on how the sudden death of my boyfriend, his brother, and our friend during the early fieldwork phase of my doctoral studies influenced my fieldwork. My visible grief caused a shift in my position from a white European anthropologist doing fieldwork in East Africa to (also) the bereaved (girl)friend mourning the death of three Tanzanian men. In accepting comfort and care from and sharing experiences of loss with interlocutors, artificial boundaries between 'personal' and 'professional' and between 'researcher' and 'researched' were blurred. While coping with grief during fieldwork had limiting practical implications, the interhuman relations that grew from empathy, care, and shared sorrow made people more inclined to share their own intimate and complex inner workings. In addition, the fact that my boyfriend had been Tanzanian influenced how people in the field positioned me: being the bereaved girlfriend of a Tanzanian 'brother' made me a shemeji (sister-in-law) who, as a relative, should be taken care of. This also affected how willing people were to be critical of Western organisations and actors in my presence. I compare my experience as a grieving ethnographer with my choice in earlier fieldwork to not disclose my relational status and the implications this had for my position in the field and the kind of relationships I was able to build. Finally, drawing from my experience of coping with trauma and grief during fieldwork, I reflect on the limitations of alienation and suffering for anthropological knowledge production.

Paper short abstract:

During fieldwork I felt fear. The experience of fear made me revisit my field notes and the interviews I conducted, and realize how important fear was in the interlocutors' narratives. I will discuss what fear taught me of my research and of anthropological epistemology and methodology.

Paper long abstract:

During fieldwork I experienced fear. This fear came from nowhere, it was uncontrollable, it went against all of the positive experiences I had had in the field, it went against everything I believed in. It aggravated me. I had to take a distance and think about it and about me and my positioning in the field.

The experience of fear made me revisit my field notes and the interviews I conducted with Israeli Jewish left-wing women, who, following their activism and dissent, moved to Palestinian localities in the West Bank. The interviews and fieldwork were part of my Ph.D. research which explores the perceptions of political action and the sovereignty of Israeli-Jews whose opposition to the Israeli control over the Palestinian territories and population caused them to exile themselves from Israel. Since my main interest is political action and sovereignty, I tended to look for these themes when analyzing the data. But, having felt fear, and having read the materials again, I realized how important fear was in the interlocutors' narratives. I went back to some of them and called the others to discuss my experience, and theirs.

In my presentation, I will unfold my experiences of fear, the experience of fear the interlocutors had in Palestine, the meaning they gave to the presence of fear as well as to the experience of feeling safe and welcomed in Palestine. I will conclude with what fear taught me of sovereignty and political action and of anthropological epistemology and methodology.