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Paper short abstract

The paper reflects on ethical, emotional, and methodological challenges of conducting ethnography in conflict-affected Cabo Delgado, showing how discomfort—witnessing structural violence and negotiating positionality—can be reflexively transformed into analytical and ethical insight.

Paper long abstract

The conflict in Cabo Delgado, Northern Mozambique, emerges from the intersection of historical political violence, land dispossession, extensive extractive practices, and shifting social dynamics. Conducting ethnographic research in this context presents profound ethical, emotional, and methodological challenges. Humanitarian interventions often reproduce colonial logics through non-participatory and discriminatory practices, creating dilemmas around complicity, representation, and engagement with vulnerable populations.

In this paper, I reflect on my experiences conducting political ethnography among internally displaced persons and urban residents in conflict- torn Cabo Delgado. I examine the moments of discomfort elicited by witnessing structural violence, negotiating access, and confronting the limits of my positionality, values, and assumptions. I discuss strategies I employed to navigate these tensions, including integrating local voices into research design, critically negotiating ethical engagement, and maintaining reflexive awareness of power asymmetries.

I argue that discomfort— whether arising from emotional unease, ethical dilemmas, or methodological uncertainty— can be generative. By engaging reflexively with these experiences, researchers can enhance both the analytical depth of their work and the ethical quality of their interventions. Drawing on fieldwork, literature, and methodological reflection, this paper illustrates how ethnographic engagement in ethically complex, conflict-affected contexts can transform experiences of discomfort into opportunities for critical insight into conflict–city dynamics, urbanization, and the governance of aid and displacement.