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Paper short abstract

This paper focuses on author's experience of fieldwork in Rojava and engagement in teaching at University of Rojava, disrupted by STG offensive in january 2026. It uses concepts of commradeship and (specifically udnerstood) salvage ethnography to deal with the experince of war and loss in research.

Paper long abstract

In my paper I will reflect on my experience of doing the ethnography in Rojava/North-East Syria, focusing on research in the context of protracted armed struggle. My previous research focused on the ecology in the Kurdish Freedom Movement and the effects of climate change on NES. It benefited greatly from the period of stability in the region and cooperation with newly established University of Rojava. This reality, however, come to and end in January 2026. Through the auto-ethnographic lens, I will explore porous nature of both academic and political fields that created loopholes, allowing me to perform activist ethnography in a field easily described as dangerous. Such positionality entails a degree of moral commitment that I will explore through the figure of “comrade” as discussed by Jodi Dean and indigenous notion of “heval”. With help of fellow anthropologists of revolutionary movements, Alpa Shah and Axel Rudi, I will attempt to characterize the moral and emotional ambiguity of working with the movements where death and martyrdom are part of experience. Finally I will discuss my involvement in preparation of masters studies programme in social ecology at University of Rojava and its abrupt suspension due to attack of Syran Transitional Governement against the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria. This experience highlights the futility of academic engagement vis-à-vis militarized violence yet also allow to explore themes of hope and resilience through the work that can be seen as form of “salvage ethnography” as well as revolutionary continuity.