Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality,
and to see the links to virtual rooms.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Guillaume Dumont
(emlyon)
Rafael Clua García
Loic Pignolo (University of St. Gallen)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Face-to-face
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 23 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This panel asks how we can collectively make sense of the ambiguity, ambivalence, contradiction, and negotiation faced by anthropologists doing fieldwork at the interface of legality and illegality.
Long Abstract:
Anthropologists have long been conducting fieldwork on activities at the interface of legal and illegal activities (e.g., Auyero et al., 2015; Bourgois, 1995; Ferrándiz and Feixa, 2006; Rodgers, 2007; Romaní, 1997). Their commitment to prolonged presence is vital for accessing hidden populations and practices. Moreover, their involvement in multiple aspects of the everyday life of these populations is crucial to building trust and collecting in-depth data (e.g., Dumont, 2023; Koonings et al., 2019; Kovats-Bernat, 2002). These aspects make ethnography unique to move beyond the oversimplified, stereotyped, and distant views on illegalized practices. Indeed, illegality and legality are not separate social spheres, as is often thought, but are interconnected. The concept of “interface” captures the points of intersection, connection, and linkages between legality and illegality (Beckert and Dewey, 2017; Mayntz, 2017). When investigating these activities, anthropologists find themselves at these interfaces and must navigate them, sometimes facing complex methodological or ethical challenges (e.g., Jones & Rodgers, 2019; Ferrándiz, 2015; Scheper-Hughes, 2004). Accordingly, this panel asks how we can collectively make sense of the ambiguity, ambivalence, contradiction, and negotiation faced by anthropologists doing fieldwork at the interface of legality and illegality. We invite contributions focusing on these aspects and how they shape the way we do and undo fieldwork.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 23 July, 2024, -Melissa Crane (University of Manchester)
Paper short abstract:
After a year of fieldwork in Merseyside, England (2022-2023), I will reflect on my experiences with female business owners. I will discuss two specific economic practices. Firstly, the industry of unlicensed aesthetic injectables. Secondly, coercing men into sexual activity as a honeytrap.
Paper long abstract:
I recently conducted twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Merseyside, England, exploring the lives of individuals who sustain themselves through heterogeneous income-generating activities. Many of these activities occurred in legally ambiguous areas. In the case of male interlocutors, there was a daily effort to conceal their activities from authorities. In contrast, female interlocutors often believed that their activities would not be taken seriously due to the trivialisation of industries focused on women.
This paper will discuss ethnographic examples of two specific income-generating activities. Firstly, I will examine the use of unlicensed injectables for aesthetic purposes by individuals operating their own beauty businesses. This involves interlocutors who undergo informal training in locations like Romania and Latvia, subsequently importing unlicensed products such as Bolulax to administer to customers in the UK. Secondly, I will discuss individuals who engage in 'honeytraps' for a fee. These traps typically involve luring men into sexual activities and obtaining evidence, such as videos and photographs, for the person paying for the trap, often the wife of the ensnared man.
Although these practices are legally ambiguous, within my fieldwork area, they are widely accepted both socially and morally. Ethnographic fieldwork uniquely positioned me to gain in-depth information on these practices, as well as conducing many interviews, I regularly went to 'work' with participants witnessing these activities first hand. This presented numerous ethical dilemmas. This paper will address how these practices highlight ambiguities surrounding legality and the challenges involved in navigating this complexity as an anthropological researcher.
Stefan Wellgraf (University of Hamburg)
Paper short abstract:
Hooligans operate on the fringes or outside of legal norms. I will describe the ethical dilemmas of field research in this terrain. I focus on the criminalization itself, understanding it as a key to understanding the self-image of hooligans as "outlaws" and the transformations of this subculture.
Paper long abstract:
Hooligans systematically operate on the fringes or outside of legal norms, and while their activities were tolerated for a long time, they have been targeted by anti-terrorism measures in Western Europe since the 2000s. In Germany, organized hooligans can be classified as a criminal organization, and their links to the Far Right also make them the target of measures directed against right-wing extremism. Ethnographic research on hooliganism therefore operates in a legally difficult terrain, and it is almost impossible not to observe criminal offenses in the process. This inevitably raises the question of positioning oneself in the field. On the one hand, some hooligan groups are among the violent protagonists of the current shift to the right; on the other hand, they are also stigmatized and criminalized in problematic ways, similar to other organized soccer fans. In my presentation, I will describe the ethical dilemmas and methodological difficulties of field research in this terrain, which resemble a constant balancing act. In doing so, I focus on the criminalization itself, understanding it as a key to understanding the self-image of hooligans as "outlaws" and the recent transformations of this subculture.
Ragnhild Elise Johansen (Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper i will discuss methodological, ethical and legal aspects of doing research on two forms of genital practices, infibulation and labia elongation, for anthropological positioning in terms of data-collection, analysis, and writing.
Paper long abstract:
Various communities, groups and individuals practice various forms of genital manipulation – including practices (such as male and female circumcision/genital cutting/mutilation, cosmetic surgery, gender affirmative surgery, hymenoplasty), for various reasons, (including tradition, religion, aesthetics, health), and with various legal regulation (illegal for minors only, or for all, with parental consent only, or not even with adult individual consent, or depending on provider).
Based on the two practices I have studied most in-depth, infibulation (the most extensive form of female genital mutilation/cutting) among migrants in Norway, and labia elongation among Mozambican migrants in Tanzania, I will explore the grey areas of legality and illegality and the researchers methodological, ethical, legal, and moral reflections both on data-collection, analysis, and writing.
In my paper I seek insight into motivations and cultural meaning for support and opposition to the practice, as well as he personal experiences of the practices and the legal regulations, and the anthropological maneuver.
The debate, even within anthropology, on Female genital cutting/mutilation has and still is strongly polarized. On the one sides are anthropologists arguing for this practice as a cultural right, and minimize and cast doubt upon literature on health complications (Ahmadu 2000). On the other hand, there are researchers who focus on the health risk and the pain and personal experiences of the practice, and how it may diverge from cultural meaning (Johansen, 2002; Gruenbaum, E., & Ahmed, 2022; Talle 2010). Shepher-Huges was an early contributor to this debate, and her insistence that anthropologists should stay away from FGC studies: “Hands off! Enough is enough! (And two Rivers prize awards and one previous honourable mention for papers on this topic is more than enough). Let Egyptians and Sudanese women argue this one out for themselves.” (Shepher-Hughes 1991; 26). Her petition is even more striking when seen in relation to her general appeal for the opposite, arguing that scholarly research must be “ethically grounded” and that cultural relativism, if read as moral relativism, “is no longer appropriate to the world in which we live” (Shepher-Hughes 1995; 410).
In diaspora, the different legal regulations of different vaginal practices become more acute, as it coincides with residence status (minority versus majority), ethnic discrimination), and creates heated debates. Furthermore, in this context, anthropological writings about these practices may have implications for policy and practice, requiring significant attention to method and ethics.
References
Ahmadu, F. (2000). "Rites and wrongs: An insider/outsider reflects on power and excision." Female “circumcision” in Africa: Culture, controversy, and change: 283-312.
Gruenbaum, E., & Ahmed, S. A. (2022). Thoughtful comparisons: how do genital cutting traditions change in Sudan? A reply to ‘The prosecution of Dawoodi Bohra women’ by Richard Shweder. Global Discourse, 12(1), 189-206. Retrieved Jan 22, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1332/204378921X16349703862780
Johansen, R. E. B. (2002). "Pain as a counterpoint to culture: toward an analysis of pain associated with infibulation among Somali immigrants in Norway." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 16(3): 312-340.
Schepher-Huges, N. (1991). Virgin Territory: The Male Discovery of the Clitoris. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 5(1), 25-28. 141
Schepher-Huges, N. (1995). The primacy of the ethical: Propositions for a militant anthropology. Current Anthropology, 36(3), 409-20.
Talle, A. (2010). Getting the Ethnography Right'. On Female Circumcision in Exile. Ethnographic Practice in the Present. M. a. W. Melhus, EASA series, Berghahan books. 11: 107-120.
Talle, A. (2007). Female Circumcision in Africa and Beyond: The Anthropology of a Difficult Issue. In: Hernlund, Ylva and Shell-Duncan, Bettina (eds.). Transcultural Bodies: Female Genital Cutting in Global Context. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press
Manos Papageorgiou (Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the intersections and dynamics between legality and illegality through the exploration of sheep rustling in Rethymno (Crete), its contemporary meanings and correlations with legal entrepreneurship and the challenges the anthropologist faces in its study.
Paper long abstract:
Animal theft in Crete, Greece's largest island, has deep historical roots. Anthropological research indicates that in the mountain villages of Mylopotamos in Rethymno, sheep thievery served as a rite of passage, symbolizing maturity into manhood, also as contradictory way preventing theft against each shepherd-rustler while exploring the potential for forging new alliances through mediators. Despite government efforts to regulate it, over the past three decades, there has been a significant surge in mass animal theft due to technological advancements and evolving risk economies in the region. As suggested by the interlocutors in this research, the current surge in mass animal theft operates in tandem with legal entrepreneurship, such as food-chain businesses and slaughterhouses.
The fieldwork included participant observation in sheepfolds, discussions and interviews with shepherds and butchery owners who were either victims or somehow connected to the social networks associated with animal thievery—a finding that surprised me, as it revealed applicability even to my own origins. Consequently, my fieldwork was not just a search for information and facts; as argued by numerous anthropologists, fieldwork can also generate events. During my four-month fieldwork in villages around Mylopotamos, I faced numerous complex methodological and ethical challenges regarding the ethic of secrecy, the multiple audiences of the area and the conflict of interests between the livestock farmers. The risk extended beyond exposing my interlocutors to the law; it also encompassed the peril of revealing one person's words to another, some of which could act potentially as insults that would lead to to violence.
Guenni Ahmed Aziz (Liège university Tunis university.)
Paper short abstract:
We aim through this proposition to describe our ethnographic study conducted with "irregular" vendors of Spain's street, one of the main streets in the center of Tunis, thereby; we will present our process of accessing, negotiation and building trust and familiarity with our hosts.
Paper long abstract:
We aim through this proposition to make sense of our ethnographic study conducted on the street of Spain, one of the main streets in the center of Tunis (From November 2022 to June 2023), with the "irregular" vendors who occupy the sides of the street to sell their products. By doing so, they transform it into an informal market. This practice is based on the exploitation of the public space, taking a form of privatization of public good, which is the street space. Which manifest itself as an appropriation of a portion of the street, reserved for a vendor or a group of vendors to serve as a space for installing their stalls.
The process of accessing populations characterized by illegal and illicit practices requires often the building of the trust and establishing a prolonged presence within the community. According to that, we will discuss the challenges of accessing our "sensitive" research site, primarily, faced by the suspicion and mistrust, due to the clandestine nature of the vendors' activities, which their activity is located at the legal margins. Afterwards, we will discuss our process of building trust and familiarity in fieldwork, also the alternance of our participation from peripheral participation to active involvement in the daily life of our hosting "irregular" vendors, and how that active participation contributed to insert a certain reciprocity in our ethnographic relationship, leading to a constructive fieldwork presence.
Marc Tadorian (Haute École spécialisée de Suisse occidentale)
Paper short abstract:
Starting with the results of an ethnographic fieldwork into the practice of graffiti trainwriting in Europe, this paper delves into the methodological and ethical issues involved in studying the criminalized activities of trainwriters, exploring both their risky behaviors and daily lives.
Paper long abstract:
This paper delves into ethnographic challenges in studying the criminalized activities of graffiti trainwriters, exploring both their risky behaviors and daily lives. Despite the undeniable academic contributions of such studies since the 1920s, especially through the Chicago School's pioneering works, they present significant challenges for ethnographers from both a methodological and an ethical point of view. Focusing on observing transgressive actions of young individuals engaged in illegal practices, the paper examines the dangers of closely following them along the off-piste path of the railway network. It draws on ethnographic 'all-terrain fieldwork' conducted in Europe from 2009 to 2015, specifically investigating the spatiality of 'translocational' circulations among young men based in Switzerland but networked well beyond the borders of their country of residence. The paper highlights emerging protective measures developed during the fieldwork to protect my research from the various types of danger identified at one point or another during the course of my fieldwork. Additionally, and given the current context of institutionalization of questions of professional ethics, the methodological and ethical considerations taken into account in this paper seek to open up avenues of reflection on the conditions of implementation of ethnographic practice and, more particularly, of sensitive fieldwork nowadays.
Branwen Spector (University College London)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation explores the complexities of conducting fieldwork at the interface of legality and illegality in relation to care and responsibility, both institutional and disciplinary. I ask where care should originate from and where it can be embedded into ethnographic work at the interface.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation explores the complexities of conducting fieldwork at the interface of legality and illegality in relation to the ideas of responsibility and care – both institutional and disciplinary. Drawing on three years of fieldwork in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank (OPWB) working across political lines in both a Palestinian refugee camp and Israeli settlement, I reflect on the numerous ambiguities, contradictions, and negotiations I faced in this work. In so doing, I highlight the flexibility and ambiguity of the ethnographic method while turning the lens back on the institutions and departments hosting our work, and our role as anthropologists. Research at the “interface” is often valued highly, causing researchers conscious of the pressures of career advancement to conduct research that can often place ourselves at risk.
Making sense of the ambiguities, ambivalences, contradictions, and negotiations at this intersection necessarily involves careful thought about protecting our interlocutors, often at the expense of our own wellbeing. Drawing on three examples of such interfaces from working in an occupied, violent, and politically fraught setting, I ask what we as a scholarly community and the institutions hosting our work can do to care for each other in the process of such work. I therefore engage with the notion of the “interface” as existing both between legality and illegality, but also within dynamics of professionalism/unprofessionalism and responsibility/freedom to conduct research. Ultimately, I use this session to ask where care should originate from and where it can be embedded into ethnographic work at the interface.
Elorri Harriet (Université de Genève)
Paper short abstract:
Where to work when meeting customers on the Internet? Taking into account different relational dynamics, this paper will aim to put into perspective the issues and dilemmas involved in sharing information in sex work research, once the researcher has been identified as the bearer of informations.
Paper long abstract:
Sex work is legal in Switzerland, considered a free economic activity. But faced with the difficulties of accessing legalized workspaces, some sex workers are turning to the short-term rental sector made possible by the economy of platforms such as Airb&b, booking.com and contactless check-in. On the one hand, the use of these spaces for commercial purposes is prohibited by the general terms and conditions of the rental companies, and on the other hand, control officers, relying on various legal frameworks, can qualify them as "illegal parlors".
As my research work led me to identify legal frameworks, map legal and illegal workplaces and support groups, as well as to meet with short-term rental managers, I began to accumulate useful knowledge that sex workers can also share with each other. Identified as such by some of my interviewees, the expectation that I would share this knowledge was sometimes quite explicit. At once a methodological resource for meeting new sex workers, because interpreted as a sign of trust, this position raises several questions of research ethics that this presentation sets out to articulate.