Short Abstract

This panel explores how social anthropologists deal with discomfort in fieldwork, considering emotional, ethical, and methodological challenges. It highlights the generative potential of uncertainty, relational engagement, and reflexive practices in research.

Long Abstract

As social anthropologists, we have long learned to manage—or at times suppress—our emotions, particularly those that conflict with our role as researchers, during fieldwork. Yet the political views, lifestyles, and personal choices of our interlocutors inevitably affect us, both professionally and personally.

We frequently find ourselves perplexed and uncertain about how to engage with discomfort and disquiet as they arise. Without confronting these experiences and developing personal responses to troubling reflections, we risk losing the whole picture of the subjects we study. This challenge reminds us why we are taught to explain rather than to judge, to resist simplistic moral dichotomies—good and bad, moral and immoral, kind and cruel. Drawing on Applebaum (2017), who treats discomfort as a necessary condition for learning and transformation, and Slater (2022), who argues that discomfort opens a space for relational learning, we highlight the potential of unsettling experiences to foster ethical reflection, methodological innovation, and deeper engagement with interlocutors.

How do we, as researchers, deal with uncomfortable encounters, unsettling lifestyles, and challenging moral dilemmas? How might we respond ethically to the discomfort our presence, values, or positionality may evoke? What reflexive strategies enable us to transform experiences of discomfort into opportunities for methodological and analytical knowledge?

We welcome contributions that explore these questions, particularly those examining the emotional, ethical, and methodological dimensions of discomfort in fieldwork across diverse cultural and geographic contexts, emphasizing the generative potential of uncertainty, doubt, and affective unease.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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