Short Abstract

This panel explores how methodologies of care—understood as ethical, reflexive, and relational approaches to research—can help navigate the complexities of polarized fieldworks. We welcome contributions concerning medical contexts, memory-laden landscapes, or sites of mobility and border-making.

Long Abstract

In an era marked by deepening social, political, and epistemic divides, anthropologists are increasingly called to engage with field sites shaped by conflict, trauma, and contested narratives. This panel explores how methodologies of care—understood as ethical, reflexive, and relational approaches to research—can help navigate the complexities of polarized environments. Whether working in medical contexts, memory-laden landscapes, or sites of mobility and border-making, anthropologists must grapple with how their positionality and methodological choices shape both the research process and its outcomes.

We invite contributions that critically examine:

● how anthropologists adapt their methods in environments marked by polarization, such as conflict zones, divided communities, or contested histories

● what ethical dilemmas and responsibilities arise when conducting fieldwork in spaces of medical vulnerability, memory conflict, or migratory precarity

● whether collaborative and participatory methods genuinely foster trust and reduce epistemic divides—or whether they risk reproducing existing hierarchies and exclusions

● how specific methodological choices may inadvertently reinforce polarizing structures, or conversely, offer pathways toward dialogue, healing, and mutual understanding.

This panel seeks to open a space for methodological reflection and innovation, foregrounding care not only as a research ethic but as a political and epistemological stance. We welcome papers from all subfields of anthropology, as well as interdisciplinary perspectives, that engage with the tensions and possibilities of fieldwork in polarized settings.

This Panel has 2 pending paper proposals.
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